


Nightfall in Neverland

by TheIndigoDragonfly



Series: The Neverland Chronicles [2]
Category: A.C.E (Beat Interactive Band)
Genre: Demons, Dokkebi, Established Relationship, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Fantasy, Fate, Good versus Evil, Heavy Angst, Love, M/M, Magic, Moderate sex, Neverland (Peter Pan), Peter Pan AU, Soulmates, Spirits, Strong Violence, The Lost Boys (Peter Pan), moderate gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:55:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 56,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26663278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIndigoDragonfly/pseuds/TheIndigoDragonfly
Summary: Not all happy endings last forever...Junhee whimpered, ice crystallising in his bloodstream from both the mountain’s brisk breeze and the deadly glitter in Kasper’s eyes. His index fingertip remained hooked under Junhee’s chin, a nauseating bastardisation of the gentle fingers that normally tipped his face up lovingly, the eyes he looked into not warm and golden but flecked with sharp silver.“Anyway, now you’ve cared to join us, I think it’s high time for a little revenge after you played your part in the Lost Boys’ last little escapades. Don’t you?”Three years have passed since Junhee returned home from Neverland. But the simple life he and Donghun chose to lead is fraying - and while they chose to leave Neverland behind, Neverland has not forgotten about them...
Relationships: Lee Donghun/Park Junhee | Jun
Series: The Neverland Chronicles [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1940038
Comments: 117
Kudos: 102





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so excited to bring you this sequel to ‘Sunsets in Neverland’! For those who haven’t read the first fic – while I recommend that you do, I’ve also tried to make this fic as accessible as possible for newcomers who want to dive straight in.
> 
> A note on Dokkebi: I use this romanisation (I hate spelling words in romanisation, bane of my life), although it can also be spelled ‘dokkaebi’, ‘tokkebi’ or ‘tokebi’. Pronounced the same! 
> 
> The dokkebi you will encounter in this fic are purely of my creation – Korean mythology portrays them in many, many forms and appearances so this is purely another imagination! They are probably inspired mostly by ‘gaksi’ dokkebi (that allure humans) and ‘go’ dokkebi (weapon masters).

Junhee smiled as he crouched down next to the little girl. Her cheeks were still chubby with youth and she played with the sparkly bow in the end of her plaited hair.

“Now, we need one more flower to finish off the bouquet. Which one do you think your mommy would like?”

The girl popped a thoughtful finger in her mouth, wide brown eyes casting over the blossoms that cascaded down the walls of the floristry shop in their colourful buckets.

“That one!” she said decisively, the now-sticky finger pointing out a bright pink chrysanthemum.

Junhee smiled again, getting to his feet and plucking out the brightest blooms in the pot. “You sure are good at picking the best colours!”

The collection completed, he took the armful of flowers behind the counter and laid them gently onto a sheet of brown paper. Deft fingers curled the wrapping into a neat cone, and he tied them up in the looping red string that he must have knotted thousands of times in the decade he’d been a florist.

“Here you go.” He leaned over the counter, handing the little girl her flowers with a smile aimed at her father. “I hope your mommy likes them.”

“She will!” The little girl was barely able to clutch the huge bunch, and she tottered out with her father with a pink flush of happiness on her face. Junhee watched them go, his heart melting.

That warm doting kept on glowing in his chest as he glanced over at the other customer in his shop.

The young man was perhaps a few years younger than himself – and Junhee’s favourites had always been the young boys cringing their way through purchasing flowers that they knew nothing about. But it wasn’t the customer that caused the clutch at his heart.

Donghun leaned in just a little as he listened to the boy’s requests, his clever dark eyes bright with sincerity. Soft curls of hair fell stubbornly into his eyes and he pushed it back with a pinkie finger – that same tick Junhee saw every day when Donghun was concentrating. As the boy spoke hesitantly about what he was looking for, Donghun slipped out stems and began to wind them into a cluster, so gentle and skilled it was like his fingers were magic.

Junhee smiled, looking down at the counter and tracing the wooden grain.

Those fingertips weren’t magical anymore. It was two years since Donghun had made the decision to live permanently in Junhee’s world, leaving behind Neverland and all its supernatural flowers and enchanted creatures. Since the day his wings had melted to silken petals on the floor, Donghun’s magic had faded, his once golden freckles muted to a human brown.

Junhee tore his gaze away and went to top up the water in the pots. He listened to Donghun talking to the boy behind him, finishing up his arrangement and taking him to the counter. Eunji, Junhee’s old assistant, had graduated not long after Donghun had chosen to stay. While he missed her playful teasing and cheerful smiles, it had left room for Donghun to work in his shop with him. Cautiously, at first – after all, Donghun wasn’t accustomed to this world, and it had taken lots of patient lessons to make sure he didn’t say something strange that would raise eyebrows from customers. These days, Junhee was able to relax knowing that Donghun had a grasp on this world’s customs, and that the only giveaway of his otherworldly upbringing was in those gold-flecked irises.

The door chimed its tinkling bell as the boy left, his nose buried in the roses he’d bought, and a peaceful quiet fell over the store.

Junhee pulled out a stem from the pot in front of him, taking a deep breath of its honey scent. He hadn’t bought in Autumn Damask roses before, but their fuchsia petals were crinkled like crepe paper and their perfume made him giddy. He opened his eyes again as he heard footsteps behind him, and he smiled over one shoulder, holding out the blossom to Donghun.

“These smell incredible.” He smiled as Donghun put his nose to the petals, closing his eyes as he breathed in.

“They do. And they’re beautiful.” His arms crept around Junhee from behind as he returned the stem to the pot. “Just like you, little one.”

Junhee bit at a smile as Donghun’s lips grazed the back of his neck. Instantly, gooseflesh bubbled across his arms and his pulse picked up at nothing more than those light kisses. But he feigned a huff, turning around and ducking past Donghun to go behind the counter.

“I’m trying to work,” he complained, but Donghun followed him, putting his own hands on the counter and trapping Junhee between his body and the wood.

“So?” He grinned – one of those dark little grins that made Junhee flash back in time. The leader of the Lost Boys, all sharp words and bristling aura. This time, as Donghun caught his lips with his own, Junhee felt a bit of his protest melt away.

“Mh… Customers could walk in,” he still managed, determined to put up a fight – because this game of cat and mouse was one of his favourites. “You know… We don’t just make public displays of affection in the middle of places here, you savage.”

Donghun met his eyes. “You’re still the boy who first slept with me out by a lake where any creature in Neverland could have seen him… right?”

Junhee’s heart skipped at the mention of that first time, and his head swam with memories. Fireflies dancing in the lake’s depths… wet clothes… gold wings… the light from three full moons on slick skin. He gave in as Donghun pressed close again, losing his battle against the heat of his breath and the velvet of his lips.

It was a fierce love that swept through his veins when he kissed Donghun. That initial tumble into Donghun’s snare in Neverland years ago had heated into love in their time defeating the Ateez pirates. Or, Junhee corrected himself, their evil counterfeits, the dark spirits who had assumed their forms. But during their year apart when Junhee had returned home, and then the two years of living here in Seoul together, that love hadn’t cooled. It had merely hardened – molten lava crystallising into something solid.

And now Junhee had a hard time resisting his Lost Boy.

“Mhh, stop,” he whined, as Donghun’s fingers squeezed at their place on his hips and his body pushed him back against the counter. Stop he did, but Junhee couldn’t help gazing at Donghun’s tongue as it wet his lips subconsciously, or at himself reflected in those goddamn _inhuman_ eyes…

Donghun pulled away and smoothed on a relaxed smile over Junhee’s shoulder, just as the door chimed with its opening.

Junhee grumbled, his back still to the door. “Uh… could you take this one.”

His cheeks went pink as Donghun looked at him in innocent question, and then glanced down at Junhee’s jeans to find his answer. His grin was so wickedly naughty that Junhee wanted to shove him straight into the pots of flowers, but instead he let his sweetheart head over with a friendly greeting as he ducked out into the back of the store.

Junhee let out a slow breath and ran his hand through his hair. His ears were still pounding with the sound of his own heartbeat, but he couldn’t help but smile at the fizzy taste of fruit pastilles left on his tongue. The foods here were unlike Donghun had ever tasted in Neverland, and he had quickly acquired a sweet tooth the likes of which Junhee had never seen. Anything packed with bright colours and eye-watering sugar crystals attracted Donghun like a magnet, and his mouth always tasted like whatever sweet thing he had stashed behind the counter that day.

And that had been one of the joys – watching Donghun discover. Foods, music, books… He would never forget walking in from a run to find Donghun crying, listening to a song on Junhee’s headphones that he didn’t even understand the words of. Or the time he had tried ice cream for the first time – his eyes round as saucers as the frozen crystals of mint chocolate dissolved on his tongue. A smirk tugged at Junhee’s mouth at the memory of Donghun’s first foray into alcohol. Beer, wine, gin – all turned away with a wrinkled nose. But his opinions had changed when he had unearthed a bottle of untouched amaretto in the kitchen, and the almond sweetness had gone down quickly. Too quickly – and Junhee had been left half laughing and half wincing over a foggy-eyed Donghun as he had been sick through his nose.

When the giddy arousal had faded from his body, Junhee stepped back into the shop and continued their day of work. Time passed quickly – there was always tidying to be done, finances to be calculated, phone orders to be answered. He took care of all the management himself, leaving Donghun to create his stunning works of art with an eye that knew how every petal could compliment another.

The afternoon grew late, and the daytime stream of customers dwindled. Donghun was quiet as he drained empty pots of their leftover water.

“We need to start thinking about that wedding order tomorrow,” Junhee mused, tapping his pen to his lips where he leaned on the counter.

“Yeah.”

He glanced up at Donghun’s quiet answer. A frown tugged his brows together as he found Donghun leaned on the sink, his back to him.

“Hey… you okay?”

Donghun nodded stiffly, but Junhee felt an instinctive tug of concern and put down his pen. Heading over, he found Donghun’s face pale, and his hands were shaking on the sink.

_No. Not again._

“Are you getting sick?” Junhee asked quickly, and Donghun looked away, frustration on his features.

“No,” he mumbled, but his breath sounded unsteady. “It can’t be so soon.”

Junhee watched him, dread prickling across his skin. He made a very quick decision.

“We’re getting you home,” he said, and the tone in his voice allowed no room for argument. He crossed the store quickly and flipped the sign to _closed_. Donghun looked like he wanted to argue, but the healthiness was draining from his face by the second. It always came on so fast.

Thankfully, Junhee had been running late this morning, and had driven them both rather than their normal gentle stroll taken on days they didn’t have to attend the flower market. Donghun sank into the passenger seat, pulling his jacket closer around his body. A faint frosting of sweat had already taken its place on his forehead, and Junhee drove quickly, glancing over at Donghun as he wilted.

“Why’s it happening again so soon…” Donghun croaked, his eyes dilated, and Junhee reached over to squeeze his hand as he drove.

“It’s okay,” he soothed, but it belied his own anxieties. Why _was_ it happening again so soon? It had only been three weeks since the last episode. Junhee knew Donghun was counting too, and they were both aware that the gaps in between his bouts of sickness were getting shorter.

The first one had struck six weeks after Donghun had come to stay for good.

They had been home – thankfully – when he had complained of feeling cold and sick. Junhee had thought it a bug picked up from work, but he had watched in horror as Donghun had turned in the space of half an hour into a twitching, whimpering bundle. Only ever an hour or two in length – but from that day, Donghun had regular attacks. And they were no normal sickness…

Junhee jumped out in the driveway and hurried to Donghun’s side. He put an arm over his shoulders to steer him to their apartment, heat already radiating from his body.

They were just in time.

Donghun all but collapsed into Junhee’s arms as they closed the front door, his legs giving out from underneath him. Junhee caught him, but picking Donghun up to carry him to their bedroom drew out a feeble whimper.

“It’s okay, you’re okay…” Junhee said as he lay Donghun on the covers and smoothed his hair. His reassurances were just as much for himself. “You’re going to be okay, my angel.”

The fever broke out first. A film of sweat slicked Donghun’s face and neck, and soon it turned his t-shirt damp. Donghun’s eyes fluttered unseeing, moans escaping his lips as his body began to radiate a frightening heat. Working quickly, Junhee piled cushions and spare pillows around Donghun to make him comfortable, and ran to the kitchen for an ice-pack.

“Here,” he said gently, pressing it to his boy’s forehead. Maybe it helped, maybe it didn’t – Donghun was already dragged too far into the attack to respond.

And this was only the start.

Minutes bloated into hours, and every second brought on a change in the limp boy. Violent tremors shook him twice, and then he let out a strangled cry just as static popped between his arm and the hand Junhee had laid on it. Junhee pulled back, heart pounding, as Donghun’s freckles lit up in gold – and the brief regurgitation of magic took its hold.

All Donghun had known, when he had chosen not to return to Neverland at sunrise, was that he would lose his wings, and lose his magic. He hadn’t known then that there would be these moments where somehow, magic flared violently in his veins and pulsed through his body like an earthquake casting a fissure through the ground.

“Hun, no, stop, stop…” Junhee grabbed Donghun’s hands as he began to scratch at the golden flecks lighting up on his skin, his nails leaving furious red grooves. He shrieked in protest to being stopped. “I know… I know it burns… But you have to just wait for it to pass…”

Junhee cursed himself for having failed to learn how to soothe Donghun after all these attacks. But every single time it brought terror flooding back. Seeing him like this – agonised and helpless – brought Junhee to the brink of panic.

“My back,” Donghun howled, his face screwed up against the pain. “My back, help me…”

Junhee shifted closer on the bed, straddling a pillow and pulled Donghun up by his arms. He writhed, tears rolling down his face, but Junhee was able to tug his t-shirt off over his head to gain access to his back. Normally, Donghun’s back was marred with two faint scars, the silvery marks the only indication of the wings that once had grown there. They looked no different right now – but Junhee knew from Donghun’s accounts after his episodes that they seared like an unholy fire.

He pressed the icepack to one of the marks, eliciting a strangled noise from Donghun.

It was all he could do: be here, and wipe back his soaking hair, and touch him with ice, and wait. It was torture; he wanted to kiss the sickness straight from his boy and let it take him instead. But this was Donghun’s burden, and Junhee was powerless.

The hour felt like a lifetime, but Junhee knew the lifecycle now. After the burning, the shivering, the screaming, Donghun was sick, and Junhee held him, an arm across his shoulders and his nose pressed against Donghun’s hair, murmuring to him.

And then – like a blessing – it ended.

It faded as fast as it started. Junhee watched Donghun sag, the fierce shimmering of his freckles fading to a muted metallic. He stripped the bed around him, piling the bedding in one corner of the room and finding fresh blankets and cushions to make Donghun comfortable.

His gold-touched eyes found Junhee, groggy and confused. Junhee sat next to him, and pressed a hand to his forehead. The skin was already cooling.

“Please don’t leave me…” Donghun croaked, and Junhee took his hand.

“I’ll be right here.”

And with that, Donghun’s eyes fluttered into an exhausted place between sleep and unconsciousness.

Junhee let out a shaky breath. It never got easier, and he never felt less afraid. It was only early evening, but he got up only to throw the bedding in the wash and to change into pyjama bottoms before climbing back into bed besides Donghun, taking his sleeping form in his arms.

Where they touched, old sparks flitted between their meeting skin, just like it had done once upon a time in Neverland.

~

It was barely past midnight when Junhee woke up. Soft footsteps peeked through his dreams and he roused, squinting through the dark at the unclothed silhouette across the room. He sat up.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Donghun climbed back into bed beside him, latching instantly to his side. Junhee stroked his back; he was cool and damp, clearly having showered away the dried sweat from earlier. Junhee shut his eyes. He smelled of shampoo and fresh towels, but beneath it, that rich earthiness that was his own skin.

They lay back down, but Donghun stayed close, wrapping himself around Junhee like he couldn’t get close enough. Faint lights from Seoul’s night time filtered through the window and caught his golden freckles, where even hours later, they retained a glimmer. He nuzzled into Junhee’s neck, his lips and nose tracing maps across his skin, desperate for contact.

As accustomed to his attacks that Junhee had become, he was also accustomed to this.

Every time the sickness faded, Donghun would cling to him. Junhee didn’t know if it was some of that residual fever fogging his mind, or some instinct kicking in that he couldn’t begin to understand… But Donghun would refuse to let him go, like he was scared of being left alone.

Junhee couldn’t bring himself to mind too much.

He stroked back Donghun’s clean hair, turning over so they were facing each other. Donghun touched his nose with his own, looking up at him through thick lashes. His chest was cool against Junhee’s, and Donghun only dragged him closer, coiling their legs, pulling at the material at the hips of his pyjama bottoms with desperate fingers.

“I’m right here,” Junhee murmured, stroking his long hair again. “Do you feel okay now?”

“Yeah. Just…”

He didn’t have to finish. Still a little feverish, still shaken, still scared, heart still beating echoes of unreachable magic around his system – Junhee knew, from so many times sat fretting over him and checking in on him before.

Donghun’s nuzzling moved to the side of his face, and Junhee closed his eyes as lips brushed his ear, and then a warm tongue followed, and teeth tugged. Junhee took in a sharp breath, and the noise granted Donghun the permission he was seeking, rolling on top of him and moving to lavish attention on his neck. For a moment, Junhee weakened to his advances – but then he put out a gentle hand to his bare chest.

“Stop,” he murmured, pulling Donghun’s chin up gently. “You’re too weak for this.”

“I’m not,” Donghun cut across him. He returned to Junhee’s neck, and then trailed down to his collarbone. “I know what I want.”

“But you need to rest…”

“Little one.” Donghun pulled back, and that tone of commanding sharpness that slipped into his voice reminded Junhee of who he was – that fierce, wild leader who used to wield daggers… The very thought made Junhee’s stomach tighten with desire. “You know how these flushes of magic make it feel… for both of us.”

There was no way Junhee could deny that one. His hands crept unconsciously onto Donghun’s hips.

“I mean…” he managed, trailing off as Donghun ran fingers down his chest – his skin left sparkling tingles.

“Then let me make you feel good.” He kissed Junhee’s cheek. “I have to keep making you feel good.” Another nuzzle. “I have to keep being enough for you.”

And there it was – the third and final thing that Junhee had grown accustomed to. The sickness, the clinginess, and the fear of being ‘enough’. Concerns never voiced in between the episodes, but always came out in feverish whispers when they happened. Junhee pressed a loving kiss onto Donghun’s forehead.

“You’re enough. You always will be.” Junhee forced him to meet his eyes. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Junhee gave in.

He closed his eyes as Donghun’s fingers ran through his hair. His touches were always enough to raise the hairs on the back of his neck – Donghun didn’t need magic for that. But it was true that as the residual magic faded from his body after an attack, his skin regained its condensed lightning. Junhee let out a muffled noise as Donghun’s lips met his, slow and searching, always as though they were discovering each other for the first time. A warm tongue pressed questioningly for entrance, and Junhee opened his mouth to him, letting Donghun deepen their kiss as his fingers coiled into his hair.

Even after all this time, having Donghun straddled over him and clutching his face to kiss him deep was overwhelming.

The way his downturned eyes roved over his face between kisses, the way the lights and shadows of the night settled in the ridges of muscles on his chest and stomach, the glint of Junhee’s favourite freckle: the one on his bottom lip…

Junhee looked up at him, helpless beneath him. _I am so in love with you. You’re my everything_. He wanted to say it, but he couldn’t get the words past his lips.

Donghun lifted Junhee’s hand and planted a firm kiss into his palm, his eyebrows knitting. He sucked and nipped at each finger, then pressed his lips in the centre of Junhee's chest, then to the scar on his stomach from the night they had met – the night Junhee had been stabbed in the alleyway.

“Oh skies…” Donghun breathed as Junhee pushed him down and reversed their position, kissing Donghun’s belly and hips. A string of words followed in a language Junhee didn’t speak as he trailed his tongue up his inner thigh, dancing it closer to his aching hardness, until he gave Donghun the warm pleasure he was straining for.

He tasted different when magic was fluttering across his skin. Junhee looked up through his lashes at Donghun as he made him writhe. He tasted different – not just to his normal self, but to anyone Junhee had been with before. It was a taste that would always remind him: Donghun wasn’t human. And remembering that made him whimper around his mouthful.

“Come back up here and kiss me.”

Junhee obliged, guided by the fingertips hooked under his chin. Donghun closed his mouth over his, firm and domineering, like he was staking a claim on Junhee. Junhee relented with a moan to those kisses that told him: _you’re mine, mine, all mine_.

He relented to the kisses, relented to the dampened fingers that reached to open him, he relented to every touch and taste and prickle of electricity that passed between them. The cliff-edge that his fingers clung to grew harder to hold, until Donghun got him to his knees, tugged him close from behind and filled him with painful pleasure – and he almost let go completely.

“I love you,” Donghun whispered, so close to his ear that his words made every hair on Junhee’s body stand up.

Junhee wanted to return it, but it was stolen by a keen in his throat. He closed his eyes, and would have collapsed forward without Donghun’s arms holding him up. In three years, he had never gotten used to this – not the way Donghun’s magic could amplify every feeling and heighten every sense. He knew he was letting out some kind of noise – Donghun was murmuring to him, distantly, something about letting him hear him… But Junhee was beyond making sense of his words.

“Hun… I… I love you… I can’t… _please_ …”

Donghun pulled him into his lap backwards, rolling his hips underneath him and pressing his forehead against Junhee’s shoulder.

“Come with me, little one.”

He just heard Donghun’s breath harshen into a moan before Junhee beautifully came undone.

Sweet oblivion.

Once the hot waves stopped lapping, it was all they could manage to slip apart and curl back on top of the sheets together, the afterglow burning their skin as they fell asleep to the sound of one another’s racing hearts.

~

Junhee was grateful of the quiet day in the shop. He sighed, taking a sip of the takeout coffee hastily purchased between the morning run to the flower market and the opening of the store at nine. His eyes passed over his order notebook, seeing the words but not taking them in.

He had forced Donghun to stay home today. Despite his protests, and despite their moment of passion in the middle of the night, he was far too pale-faced for Junhee’s liking, and Junhee had insisted he stay home to recuperate. Donghun had watched him leave unhappily, his long hair loose from its usual ponytail and his eyes sad like a puppy shut indoors.

Junhee leaned his forearms on the counter, feeling discontented.

On most days – the good days – life was filled with happiness. His and Donghun’s life was simple, but they were blissfully content with one another, with their days surrounded by the flowers they loved and with their little touches and moments of hands held. Sometimes, they drove to the sea and swam together, splashing water at one another and collecting shells and sea glass. Junhee had taken him to the zoo, and to Bukhansan, and even a trip down the country to get the Jeju ferry.

But then there were days like today. Days when a creeping voice of uncertainty cleared its throat in the back of his mind.

Life had changed dramatically with Donghun. And Junhee would never, in a hundred lifetimes, hold him to any account for any of the fallout. But Junhee’s conservative parents had not taken well to the news that he had moved in with another man – their previous ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ approach to his sexuality was blown wide open. Acknowledge their son was in a serious relationship, or cut him off for good… And they had chosen to do the latter.

Which, in itself, was fine with Junhee. If they chose homophobia over him, then let them walk away. He’d gladly hold the door open for them as they walked out of his life.

What he had expected less was the slow untethering of his friendships. Donghun wasn’t just a boyfriend – he was in a strange new world. He couldn’t lead his own life, not straight away, at least. He needed Junhee with him to help him navigate – he relied on him to keep him safe from anyone discovering who or _what_ he was. His bouts of sickness made him too afraid to go out the house without Junhee, lest one should strike – he couldn’t risk magic running through his veins in public. Junhee shuddered with cold dread at the thought of what could happen to him if he got found out. Laboratories, experiments…

With that commitment to Donghun, his friendships had gradually slipped away. And so, life had been distilled to just one another.

Junhee sighed again, playing with his coffee lid. He knew these thoughts were coming up because of Donghun’s episode last night. He wished, more than anything, that he could find a way to help him. He thought drily that he would have asked Sehyoon and Byeongkwan for their bright ideas – Donghun hadn’t wanted to worry them at first, but then around a year ago, their visits to this world had dried up and it was too late.

He started to set about making his next arrangement, trying to distract himself. It was unfair. Life had been hard to Donghun in Neverland – the struggle with the dark spirits, losing Yuchan… He thought with a twist about the way the spirits had lured away Donghun’s first love, Amiri, corrupting his mind, until one day Donghun had been forced to kill his love just to stop him. Junhee just wanted his new life to be kind to him.

As he started to work with flowers, his dark thoughts eventually passed by, soothed by the act of creating something beautiful.

The day was an easy one, and as he came to shut up, he quickly gathered together one last bunch of flowers. Wrapping them in brown paper, he tucked them under his arm and headed outside for the walk home.

Despite the gloom that had trailed after him throughout the day, he smiled as he walked through the front door. Donghun was lay stretched out along the sofa, wild brown hair fanned out over a cushion, his eyes on an ethereal fantasy drama. The last of the gold had faded from his freckles and they were back to brown. Junhee savoured the moment of not being noticed; he just watched him, in love.

But soon enough those sharp ears detected his arrival, and Donghun glanced up.

“Hey,” Junhee murmured, climbing over the arm of the sofa and slotting himself down in the little gap behind Donghun so their bodies lay flush together. “I missed you so much today.”

“I’m sure you were glad of some peace and quiet.” Donghun shifted back against him, taking the hand that curled round to his front. His other hand was playing with a trinket: the compass Captain Hongjoong had gifted to Junhee when he left Neverland.

For a pretty minute, they lay together, no words needed. Junhee was glad to be back with Donghun, Donghun had missed him too, and they both felt happy to see each other and sad because of the sickness that plagued Donghun. They didn’t need words to know all that.

“That’s not how magic works,” Donghun murmured eventually, as a character on the drama sent water spiralling around himself. Junhee smiled, stroking his waist. Donghun had first and foremost found the concept of capturing moving images utterly fascinating, and Junhee used to watch him sit, straight-backed and wide-eyed, as he discovered films, and animation, and then the video app on Junhee’s phone. But there was nothing Donghun loved more than fantasy dramas. Anything with magic captured his attention – because they got it completely _wrong_ , he told Junhee a hundred times. But there was something breathtakingly adorable about watching this boy drink in human-told versions of elves and goblins.

Junhee remembered watching a show with him one late Sunday evening, with Donghun sat between his legs and leaning on his chest. Junhee had been plaiting his hair absently as three creatures on the show were identified as fairies. Donghun had spoken quietly.

“That’s what I am.”

Junhee had frozen in his hair playing. He would always remember asking Donghun, while addled by the strong magic of the flowers in Neverland, what he was – and getting a blisteringly sharp retort about how rude it was to ask. He had forced his fingers to keep playing, and his voice to remain casual, as he had proceeded.

“A fairy?” he had asked, and Donghun nodded.

“Yeah. P-h-a-e-r-i-e. Phaerie.” He had shifted a little against Junhee. “Not one like those though. Dunno how you humans got it so wrong.”

And good god, how Junhee’s heart had constricted. _He’s a phaerie. As if I could love him any more than I already do._

“I got you something,” he said now, reaching to the table next to the sofa for the flowers. He handed them to Donghun: a beautiful multihued bunch of tulips. Donghun’s eyes softened as he sat up to accept them.

“They’re beautiful,” he smiled, accepting the kiss Junhee pressed to his lips. “Thank you, little one.”

“I wanted to cheer you up.” Junhee played with his fingers. “How are you feeling?”

Donghun nodded slowly. “Do you ever feel like maybe you made the wrong decision?”

Junhee’s heart dropped, fast.

“What..?” he managed, trying to smile to suggest it was a ludicrous thing to say.

“Not me,” Donghun said quickly, reaching and grabbing Junhee’s hand. “I would never, ever have chosen not to be here with you.” Donghun’s gold-flecked eyes searched his face. “I think a lot about… how maybe my kind aren’t supposed to make the transition into your world for good. And that’s why my body is struggling with the change.” He looked down, his handsome face filled with private anxieties. “I don’t care… I’d let it kill me before I let it keep me from you… I just don’t want to be your burden.”

“Hun…” Junhee shook his head helplessly, smoothing Donghun’s hair behind his ear. “You’re not a burden. I love you, and I-”

“But I am, Junhee.” Donghun’s eyes were devoid of anything but cold hard truths. “Because of me… you’re stuck with me. You can’t go out living your life, because you always have to come back to me. I hold you back.”

Junhee stared at him. It never dawned on him that Donghun could ever feel that way, because he was always too busy feeling those sentiments the other way round. It was _he_ who felt guilty: like he had caged a bird who used to fly through sunset skies. Was it fair, that for Donghun’s love, he had stolen him away from Neverland, had taken away his magic, and kept him here where he couldn’t even go outside without Junhee by his side? At what cost had it come to keep his firefly in a jar?

“I’m sorry if-”

“Stop.” Junhee forced his voice to be firm, and it worked. Donghun looked at him, his sentence withering. “Donghun… I love you. More than I knew it was possible to love anyone. You’re… you’re my world, and I want it to be that way.” He shook his head, taking both of Donghun’s hands. “You and I, we saved a world together. You showed me a whole new existence, out there. And in both those worlds I… I’ve never met anyone I love like you. No matter how much of my life I have to give to you… no matter what it takes… I want you. I’d make the choice again and again.”

“Me too…”

“Then stop feeling guilty. Please.”

Junhee leaned over, brushing his lips faintly over Donghun’s. But Donghun pulled him in tight, kissing him with hungry love, and Junhee slid down to his back and dragged him down.

~

A boy distant among the trees. He was smiling over his shoulder, gold wings glinting in the slices of light that slipped through the emerald canopy. Junhee stumbled through the undergrowth towards him, hypnotised by the sound of his laughter. He just wanted to hold his hand. He had a feeling it would feel nice. Maybe he could trace constellations in those golden freckles, too…

His dream shattered abruptly.

He opened his eyes to the noise.

He wrenched away from the last edges of sleep, yelling out.

Three figures stood in the room, black silhouettes in the darkness. Junhee slammed back against the headboard in fear.

“ _Hun_!”

Donghun was already awake, and instinct had him leaping to a crouch on the covers, putting Junhee behind him. Even after all this time, his hand shot for the dagger at his hip – the one that no longer hung there.

Two of the intruders were the same: ink black skin marked with ivory patterns, sharp-eared and lithe. The third was smaller, his white hair scraped back and his silver wings the same crystalline spun sugar that Donghun’s once had been.

Devoid of a weapon, Donghun threw out an arm instead to protect Junhee. When hands reached to grab him, Donghun’s reflexes were lightning: he leaped back and span a fierce kick, his foot connecting cleanly with a temple.

He didn’t wait for another attempted grab. He jumped forward – to jump off the bed, onto solid flooring where the fight was fair – but he never landed.

The silver-winged boy held one hand up, the corners of his mouth tilted up in a cruel smile as he held Donghun suspended in the air with some unseen force. Donghun writhed, a cry breaking out from his lips as he fought against his invisible trappings. The boy’s fingers constricted around thin air, and Donghun began to clutch at his throat, feet kicking desperately as he gasped for air.

“Whatever happened to you, _Lost Boy_.”

Junhee cried out as Donghun fell from the air onto the floor, crumpling and falling still.

His bare feet slid on bedsheets as he pushed himself backwards until he collided with the bedside table. The two patterned-faced figures approached him slowly. One held out a cloth.

Junhee screamed out as the rag was held over his nose and mouth, his nails scratching helplessly at the strong arms that forced it into place.

He was still screaming Donghun’s name when his world faded to black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah! I am beyond excited to be posting this - the first chapter to our sequel.
> 
> Writing 'Sunsets' was so much fun, fantasy is my absolute favourite genre and I got really absorbed in the world and its characters. I was extremely torn, at the end, whether to let Donghun and Junhee be together - and eventually chose to give them their happy ending. However, I always knew there was much more to their story, and I've been planning this sequel ever since.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading the opening to our newest Neverlandian adventure. Let the magic begin...
> 
> With love,  
> The Indigo Dragonfly
> 
> [Find me on Twitter!](https://twitter.com/IndiDragonfly)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junhee and Donghun have adjusted to life in Seoul - but while their days in their flower shop are sweet, the bouts of magical sickness inflicting Donghun are anything but. With Donghun fearing he has become a burden, and Junhee worrying that he should never have asked Donghun to stay, both boys are harbouring their own private fears.
> 
> But they woke up one night to intruders, and Junhee's last sight was Donghun falling to the floor, unconscious, before he too faded to darkness...

A cool breeze kissed Junhee’s face. It carried a touch of frost, just enough to rouse him into consciousness.

He opened heavy eyes. A night sky.

Stars burst across the inky backdrop, a thousand brilliant diamonds in a crown. But they paled in comparison to the three full moons that hung like polished pearls.

Three moons…

Junhee jolted upright where he lay, dizziness kicking his head and forcing him to put a hand out to the cold stone ground. The clearing in which he lay was high up in the mountains, and he found himself looking down over sprawling forests and grassland studded with lakes that captured the moonlight in which the land was bathed.

Neverland.

 _Donghun._ He tried to call his name, but it came out thick and hopeless against the chord of cloth lodged between his teeth and tied at the back of his head.

His head swam again, a vicious confusion swamping him as he scraped himself to hands and knees. He had to get up. He had to find Donghun, he-

A hand planted in the middle of his chest as he staggered to his feet. Junhee stopped dead, lurching backwards at the sight of the smile bearing down on him.

“And where do you think you’re going?” The silver-winged boy wore the same smirk that had danced over his face as he had held Donghun suspended in the air in their bedroom. It was lazy, and cold, and sent his eyes glittering with delicious cruelty. “You’ve been lying here for a whole day, why the sudden rush?”

Junhee cast around, trying to gain an understanding of his bearings through the fog in his mind.

The clearing was surrounded by dense pines that rose steeply up towards the peaks of the mountains – mountains Junhee recognised from his time here before. Somewhere further down these inclines nestled Donghun’s tulip glade. Behind the boy, the two marked figures from before, white lines cutting through their jet-black skin in twisted patterns. Now, in their hands, were long, curved daggers.

He could run. Maybe he could run.

He turned, skittering, and slammed into something as solid as a wall.

It knocked his breath from him and he staggered back, into the waiting arms of the boy.

“Oh, shush, stop that, darling. You’ll hurt yourself.” He planted Junhee back on his feet as a panicked noise escaped around the gag in his mouth. Like a frantic insect trapped by a pane of glass, he tried again, his hands banging uselessly on the invisible shield that blocked his path.

“Really? So quick to run away from your beloved?” The boy feigned horror, his voice lacquered in sarcasm as he held a delicate hand to his chest. “And to think he would fight to the death for you…”

Junhee followed the jut of his chin.

Across the clearing, a cluster of creatures gathered at the base of a charcoaled tree – singed like many in the fires that had stripped through Neverland three years ago. Two were identical to the creatures stood behind the boy, while the other three… Sirens? Junhee’s mind cast back to the beautiful women of the sea, with their haunting lullabies that lured men to their deaths. Junhee had only seen one once – when Donghun had enlisted their help to sing in the rains that had stopped the fires. The women were deadly in their beauty, long hair curling down over their naked upper bodies, moonlight catching on the scales that encased their legs.

But Junhee looked beyond them.

Donghun was motionless, strung up to the tree’s lowest branch by his wrists. Even from here, Junhee could see the bruise on his face.

Junhee screamed past the material, fear seizing him by the throat.

A soft chuckle came from behind him.

“My, my, you’re certainly capable of making quite the racket.” The boy stepped closer to Junhee, and he pressed back against his invisible cage. “Come now, seeing as you have so much to shout about.”

His fingers were cold as he reached to gently untie Junhee’s gag, his thumb brushing over his bottom lip as he drew it back from his mouth.

“Who are you?” Junhee croaked. “Is he alive? What have you done to him?”

“Tsk tsk, so many questions.” The boy planted a hand on one hip. “But you’re right, darling. How rude of me not to introduce myself. The name’s Kasper.” He bowed with a little flourish, and his wings glittered. Junhee searched him desperately.

“You’re a phaerie.” It was unmistakable – the crystalline wings, the flashes of colour in his eyes…

“That I am.” Junhee felt a tug of recognition in the drawl of his voice – but he failed to place it as Kasper stepped closer, trailing a languid finger under Junhee’s chin. “And as for your Lost Boy – no, he’s not dead.” He smiled, so close Junhee could see the playful tongue that pressed against sharp teeth. “Where would be the fun in that?”

Junhee whimpered, ice crystallising in his bloodstream from both the mountain’s brisk breeze and the deadly glitter in Kasper’s eyes. His index fingertip remained hooked under Junhee’s chin, a nauseating bastardisation of the gentle fingers that normally tipped his face up lovingly, the eyes he looked into not warm and golden but flecked with sharp silver.

“Anyway, now you’ve cared to join us, I think it’s high time for a little revenge after you played your part in the Lost Boys’ last little _escapades_. Don’t you?”

Junhee’s mind raced. Their last escapades..? There hadn’t _been_ escapades since Junhee had left, not according to the Lost Boys – their attention had turned to re-growing the flowers and trees, reviving Neverland to its former glory… Junhee hadn’t been in Neverland for three years, not since they had set _The Crescent_ alight and killed the spirits that had taken the forms of the Ateez pirates?

Junhee’s eyes snapped back up.

The slow drawl of sarcasm. The voice was different. The face was different. But the words, the inflection, the drag on the world _darling_ …

“You were the fake Captain Hongjoong.” The words escaped Junhee’s lips as a rushed breath, touched with a quiver.

Kasper gave a graceful smile.

“Looks like you’re more than just a pretty face.”

Junhee’s mind raced. The spirits? How could it be the same spirits..? He had watched them be killed. Watched Donghun and Byeongkwan’s blades come out slick with blood, watched the real Hongjoong decapitate his imposter, watched the ship go down in a funnel of flames and black smoke… How..?

Kasper chuckled softly.

“Your face is a real work of art, right now. _Almost_ as beautiful as that day we stole you away and took your blood…” Junhee’s body lurched back at the memory, his back banging again into the invisible barrier. Waking up aboard that ship, strung to the mast… “You really thought you’d bested us, sweetheart, but I’m afraid the blood we took from you that day allowed us to do some truly _wicked_ things…”

“How did you find us?” Junhee managed, eyes shooting to where Donghun still slumped, unconscious. He reached out trembling hands in his direction, but the barrier extended there too – partitioning the clearing and keeping them apart.

“Ah. Well that was quite the beautiful little coincidence. You see…” Kasper reached into the pocket of the black leather trousers that clung to his legs. When he withdrew his hand, his fingers unfurled to reveal a little golden trinket. Junhee’s heart skipped.

Hongjoong’s compass.

For a wild moment, he stared into Kasper’s face. No. Hongjoong… After everything, had he betrayed them? Had he been working with the spirits all along..?

“As much as the look of pure betrayal on your face is truly rather enchanting, no – he didn’t know.” Kasper idly tossed the compass between his hands; the metal clinking against the silver rings he wore on all fingers. “This little thing was hexed a very long time ago. And to think that idiot boy who calls himself captain planted this right into your hands… Little did he know the favour he was paying us.” Clink. Clink. Clink. “It’s been rather entertaining, looking in on the two of you playing at domestic bliss.” Junhee flushed hot. “You’ve done a rather admirable job at pretending that _thing_ is human.”

Junhee’s face crinkled into a snarl. His heart pounded with fear, but at the sound of words spoken against Donghun, blind fury swilled in his veins.

“Stop that, darling. You’re starting to look like him. It’ll do no good to your complexion.”

The phaerie – no, the _spirit_ , Junhee reminded himself desperately, because this was just another copycat appearance – came closer, so close his breath tickled on Junhee’s cheek.

“It’s a shame,” he purred, smoothing back Junhee’s hair with a frosty hand that turned his insides to stone. “We could have had some fun before we use you for your blood.” Junhee whimpered, pressing his eyes shut as the back of a rough hand caressed his neck. “What do you think… _little one_.”

It was like someone grasped and twisted Junhee’s heart, hearing those words spoiled in a filthy mouth.

“ _Never_.”

“No? Shame.” Kasper twirled away with grace, one shoulder lifting in an elegant shrug. “Suit yourself. But let’s see what your Lost Boy thinks you might do in the arms of another phaerie.” He shot a beautifully dark smile over his shoulder. “It’s ever so fascinating what someone’s deepest fears can make them agree to. Here, let me show you.”

Junhee was too afraid to even register the meaning of his words at first. And then he looked up, eyes following Kasper as he phased easily through the invisible barrier and walked towards Donghun’s still form. _What you might do in the arms of another..?_

The sirens and patterned bladesmen parted as Kasper approached.

Despite it being of the least importance, it struck Junhee that they were both in just their pyjamas. Donghun was the picture of fragility, hung there in the soft blue pyjamas Junhee had bought for him at Chuseok. The last time he had been here, he had had his wings, and his magic, and his weapons, and now he had none of it: just his bedclothes and bare feet.

With an effortless twitch of one hand, Kasper sent a green light shimmering around Donghun. Another flutter of fingers and the bindings keeping him strung up snagged, letting him fall to the floor with a bump. Junhee’s throat constricted, and he called Donghun’s name as the boy blearily moved to his hands and knees.

Donghun blinked slowly, and then his face tilted up to the silver one looking down at him. The fog in his eyes dissipated, and he forced himself backwards, staggering onto his feet and lowering to a crouch with his hands raised in front of him.

“Now there’s the wild little fellow I was hoping for,” Kasper crooned. “Goodness, it doesn’t take much for your faux-human façade to come unravelled, does it?”

“Who are you?” Donghun spat, his voice laced with none of the fear that had trembled in Junhee’s. His gold-flecked eyes darted between Kasper, the three sirens and the two ink-skinned creatures. But as Junhee jumped to slam his hands on the barrier, Donghun’s eyes slid straight past him. He called his name, but still Donghun didn’t look his way.

_He can’t see me…_

“Just another phaerie, looking to help out another,” Kasper enunciated delicately. “You’ve been lying here for quite some time. I’ve been waiting for you to come round.”

Donghun spat on the ground at Kasper’s feet.

“I’ll take that as a ‘nice to meet you’.”

“Where is he?”

“Ah, I thought you might ask.” Kasper turned his back to Donghun, a mirthless smile stretching his lips where Donghun couldn’t see it. “Firstly, you should know I’m just trying to help you. Phaerie to phaerie. But you’ve really gone and caused some trouble. Fleeing Neverland, leaving everything behind…” He shot him a piercing look, one that brimmed with a fake sympathy. “Bringing down this eternal night…”

“What?” The faintest hesitation trickled onto Donghun’s face.

“Oh, this?” Kasper feigned surprise, waving a hand at the dark skies. “This is permanent, my dear. This is mid-morning. The night fell months after you left and the sun hasn’t risen since.” He tutted slowly, his face the picture of sadness. “All because you ran away.”

“You’re a liar. Give me one reason I should stick around here and listen to you.”

“Well, if you insist…” Kasper sighed, shrouded in fake sympathy. “I didn’t want to have to show you this…”

Junhee slammed up against the veil, hammering desperately, as Donghun turned towards him at Kasper’s indication. But his eyes didn’t fall on Junhee. They fell somewhere on the space between them, on empty air. But Donghun’s face changed. Slow, seeping horror fell over his face, freezing every cell in Junhee’s body.

“Would you like to see what he’s seeing?”

Junhee flinched at the prickling voice in his ear, and the creature gave a slow smile. The air on the other side of the barrier shimmered, and two figures materialised.

Junhee jolted as he saw himself.

Hair pushed back, dressed in clothes that weren’t his own – but it was him. He sat on the edge of a rock cluster, a smile pulling up the corners of his mouth.

In front of him, a phaerie, with blood red wings and tumbling dark hair.

“No…”

The image of himself leaned closer, lips grazing tantalisingly over the phaerie’s. His fake self sank into the kiss, accepting the hands that slid around him, tugging his hips in closer.

“No!” Junhee’s voice broke on the word. He banged on the veil keeping him from Donghun. “Hun! _Hun, it’s not real!_ ”

But Donghun couldn’t hear him. All the tension that had sprung into his muscles in self-defence melted away. He took an involuntary step back, his dark eyes fixed in horror at the image of Junhee with the scarlet phaerie.

Kasper put a balancing hand on the small of Donghun’s back.

“Your little one came round long before you, and we just wanted to keep him company…” Kasper shook his head sadly. “He was _quite_ fascinated to be around phaeries again.”

The fake Junhee let out a moan that rang clear in the frosty clearing. At his noise, the red phaerie pushed his tongue between the apparition’s lips, fingers reaching assertively to start prying open buttons of his shirt.

Tears welled in Junhee’s eyes and he banged again on the magical barrier. “Hun, it’s an illusion, it’s not real!” He hammered again. “He’s not one of your kind! He’s not trying to help you!”

“He can’t hear you.” The creature behind him let out a breathy laugh. “Looks like he can’t even tell you apart from a simple illusion.”

Junhee kept screaming for him. The look of betrayal scratched into Donghun’s features made his stomach turn. All his fight, all his fierceness left his frame. The one thing in the world that could make Donghun sway, that could make him wobble in the face of a situation like this: Junhee. Losing him.

They were using it against him.

“He was lured away so _easily,_ practically pushing himself on Xenir there… It looks like all he wants from someone is their magic.” Kasper’s voice was silk. “A bit of someone _exotic_.” He dragged out the word on his tongue. “Guess it never really mattered who.”

The illusion of Junhee gasped as his shirt was discarded, writhing under the lips of the phaerie as they graced down his chest and skimmed over his nipples.

“And can you blame him?” Kasper continued delicately. “He fell for this wild, enchanted Lost Boy. With his wings… his spells… and ah, that way your skin felt when you touched.” He smiled knowingly. “And then he was left with… you. Magickless, plain _you_.”

The entwined figures between them slid endless strokes over one another, tearing off clothes, taking each other in hands, moaning and smiling and gasping into necks.

“Can you blame him for regretting his decision? Can you blame him for wanting _more?_ A boy who’s tasted magic… You thought you could satisfy him by trying to become _human_?”

Junhee closed his eyes as the phaerie gently parted the illusion’s thighs. Make it stop.

When he opened his eyes again, he didn’t look at the rough thrusting of the mirage figures. He looked at Donghun, his hands pressed up against the barrier in front of him, tears sliding down his face as he watched.

Junhee understood. In that moment, he understood why this was happening. Kasper’s words: _It’s ever so fascinating what someone’s deepest fears can make them agree to._

This was Donghun’s deepest fear. All those times he had murmured to Junhee about wanting to be enough for him… Asking him if he felt he had made a mistake… Worrying that he had become nothing but a burden…

They were showing him his nightmare. Weaken him with the worst, steal away his ability to think straight. Take away the thing he fights for.

“Isn’t it a pity, how things are never what they seem?” Kasper stroked Donghun’s hair gently; it didn’t make him look away. “You need to return to Neverland, Donghun. Your home is _here_. It isn’t with that boy, it isn’t pretending to be a different species… It isn’t in the bed of someone who cares nothing more than the way your body makes him feel. _Made_ him feel.”

Donghun closed his eyes, tears dripping from his chin.

“Come back.” Kasper’s voice was oh-so-soft. “Come back to Neverland, and become who you used to be. You can end this long night that’s fallen. It’s all we want.”

“How?” Donghun’s voice was broken.

Kasper met his gaze. “We can restore your magic.”

Junhee’s hands slid down the glass. Donghun searched Kasper’s face.

“You can?”

Kasper nodded. “Your wings… Your magic… All of it.” He glanced at the illusion; the sounds of the fake Junhee’s cries tightened, his hands gripping at bare hips. “Maybe… Maybe he’ll want you back if you can become the person he fell in love with.”

A sob burst out from Junhee’s throat. He leaned on the barrier, tears streaking down his face. “I love you, don’t listen to him…”

Donghun’s wet eyes looked once more at the copulating pair. His heart was shattering and it was stained on his face, and it was the worst expression Junhee had ever seen.

“I… I want him to be mine again.”

“I know you do, poppet.” The arm that slid around Donghun filled Junhee with boiling rage. “And I know you want to fix what you broke here.” He glanced up at the dark sky. “You’ve known all along that leaving was the wrong choice… The fear riddles you, the way your body has clung to magic even after you left Neverland is of your own doing…”

Donghun looked into his face. “How do you know..?”

“I can sense it in you.” Kasper looked down at him. “We phaeries sense these things in one another, no? You still have some magic in your veins, despite everything…”

Donghun slumped, his eyes closing as tears leaked between his lashes. “I didn’t mean for it… I don’t know why it happened… I tried to change…”

“You were too afraid to let go of who you are. And you never should have. This place is who you are. The darkness fell because of you. _You_ changed the balance in Neverland, _you_ are part of its magical tapestry.” Kasper shook his head slowly. “But you can fix this, Donghun. You can fix the darkness, and you can try and win his heart back. Let us help you.”

Junhee’s breath was a caged bird in his chest. His knuckles whitened, pressed against the glass.

Donghun searched Kasper’s face, looking into the eyes of one of his own for the first time in years.

“Okay.”

Junhee didn’t hear the word, it was so quiet. He read it from Donghun’s lips. A cry whimpered from his chest in response and he pressed his forehead against the barrier, tears fogging his eyes.

“This is what he wanted all along.” Junhee jumped as Kasper appeared beside him, slipping with a shimmer through the barrier and smiling against his ear. His whisper cut Junhee like fragments of shattered glass. “See how easily he was persuaded? He _wants_ his magic back. He wants back what _you_ stole from him. You trapped him in your dull little world like a wanton’s bird, and now the string has snapped.”

“You’re a liar!” Junhee whirled on him with a fist, and his arms were caught by one of the inked creatures. He sobbed, straining for Kasper. “He’s doing this because he thinks it’s the only way to keep me, but I would _never_ leave him! He doesn’t want his magic back!”

“Are you sure?” The façade, the gesticulating, dropped from Kasper. He stared into Junhee’s eyes; it may have been a different face, but that self-same spirit that had taken on Hongjoong’s form three years ago burned behind those eyes. “Are you really sure that this isn’t what he wanted all along? To come back to all that he gave up for you?”

Junhee’s lip trembled.

No. He wasn’t sure. His own private fears flared in his stomach, the ones that told him that Donghun always regretted leaving Neverland behind.

“You know what they say, little one.” Kasper turned, throwing words over his shoulder as he stepped back through the barrier. “If you love them, let them go.”

Donghun hadn’t moved from the spot. The illusional Junhee and his lover had redressed, and now they skittered away, hands still roaming each other, faces flushed from sweet release. Donghun watched them go, one hand twitching towards them like it was connected by red thread to the one he thought was Junhee.

Simply, Kasper held out a small vial. The liquid inside was a deep scarlet red, catching the moonlight with iridescent sheen.

“Highroot and ixcorn blood.” Kasper shrugged lightly. “That simple.”

Donghun stared at him in alarm. “You killed an ixcorn?”

“No! No.” Kasper placed a hand on his chest in horror. “Of course not. But when one is found dead… well, we have to capitalise on these things when we can. I’m sure you used to do the same.”

Donghun took the vial, holding it up to the light. “Highroot is venomous. Even a tiny amount would kill me.”

“Right again. Venomous to _magical_ creatures. You don’t have any magic left – well, besides those odd little flashes.”

Junhee banged the veil despite its futility. He wasn’t going to drink it?! Surely… _Surely_ he wasn’t going to trust this phaerie?

God above, but Donghun had told him about the close bond between phaeries here in Neverland – the very reason he and the Lost Boys had banded together for life when they found one another. He _trusted_ him, inherently, because of _what_ he thought he was. Because Kasper was a phaerie. Even if it meant poisoning himself?

“You could be poisoning me,” Donghun said, as though he could hear the echo of Junhee’s thoughts.

“I won’t make you.” Kasper watched him quietly. “We can take you back to where we found you…”

“Without him.” Donghun stared at the liquid in his hands. “I’d rather it poisoned me than I went back without him.”

And he put the vial to his lips and drained it.

It slipped from his fingers and shattered.

Junhee watched, paralysed by fear, as Donghun slipped to his knees. His breathing grew ragged, shoulders heaving, and he clutched at his stomach. Kasper stood back, and then Donghun let out a blood-curdling scream.

Light, time, space – it all seem to twist around Donghun. Junhee screamed for him, and then he threw up a hand to shield his eyes, blinded by the golden light. When it faded, Donghun was writhing, his hands reaching to scrabble at his own back, tugging at the place where wings flickered in and out of tangibility.

Gold, and beautiful, and glorious.

Every freckle across his body danced golden. Still he squirmed, his face screwed up, teeth bared. Kasper took a step backwards, eyes glittering.

Then Donghun slammed one hand down on the ground and everything shattered.

The barriers splintered into shards, raining down on the ground and evaporating to nothing. Junhee tumbled forwards, skittered into a run straight towards Donghun. He fell to the ground in front of him.

“Hun!”

Junhee grabbed his face, tilting it up at him. Donghun had stopped screaming, but his breathing was huge and heavy, sweat dripping down his face. His eyes shone with their golden glow as he looked up into Junhee’s face.

“Junhee..?” His voice was hoarse and frightened. “Who is he? I’ll be better than him… Please come back to me…”

“That wasn’t me, that wasn’t me…” Junhee cried, cupping his face desperately as tears bid down his cheeks. “You didn’t have to do this, I would _never_ leave you, I-”

It happened quickly.

Strong hands wrenched Junhee backwards, dragging him back on his feet and away from Donghun. Kasper took a handful of Donghun’s hair in one hand, and cast the other up skyward. A distant shrieking, raw and wild… It came closer, the like skies were splitting and the scream was falling from the stars…

A tumbling wisp of black smoke barrelled down from the sky, a great swirling mass that slammed down past Kasper’s outstretched arm and collided with Donghun with such force it knocked him onto the floor.

“Yes!” Kasper’s eyes glittered, his gasp euphoric.

Junhee’s breath caught.

Donghun put a hand to his chest, like he had swallowed too much air. He stared up, stared at Junhee, met his eyes for one long, still moment. He blinked.

His once brown-gold eyes were black.

Junhee jolted backwards.

Donghun staggered to his feet, looking down at his own forearms. The freckles only just now turned gold again began to fade, one by one, darker and darker and darker until they became black stains, and they ran like spilled ink to connect, black spiderwebs linking over his skin. An inky mottle diluted the shimmer of his reborn wings, gold mixing with jet black like a mould growing on something pure. Donghun staggered as he watched his own change, a slow, twisted grin taking over his mouth.

Kasper stepped forward, his eyes burning with silver.

“Finally,” he breathed. “Perfect new forms for all eight of us… And a pure vessel at last.”

Junhee’s blood turned to ice.

New forms. All eight of us. No. _No,_ they couldn’t have… Eight spirits…

“How is your new form, brother?” Kasper’s voice took on something like reverence.

“So much… strength…” Donghun croaked, in a voice that was both his own and something hideously twisted. “So much… The well of magic inside him… It’s _endless_.” He let out a bark of laughter, clutching his own chest and staggering. Then the smile dropped into a grimace. “But he… he fights… He fights me still.”

“He’s your vessel, brother, force him _away_.”

“He realises already what he’s done. He knows… He knows of his possession. He fights to purge me.”

“Don’t let him!” Kasper took a step forward. “Crush him.”

Donghun screamed, stepping backwards, hands on his temples. Black markings phased out to gold, the stain of that other voice lifted from his scream.

Junhee jumped forward, using the surprise of the creature behind him to slip free.

“Donghun!” he shouted. “Donghun, fight it! It’s a spirit, it’s using you as a v… a vessel, it’s inside you, _please fight it_!”

Donghun’s wide eyes slid up to his. For a moment, they were deep brown, all gold-flecked and filled with his boy’s heart. They were scared. And then another cry of pain, and they turned black once more.

A catastrophic bang shattered the night air.

All the creatures fell to a crouch, and Junhee flung his arms over his head. He gasped, looking up, to find Donghun staggered, tearing at his hair. The black and gold flashed in and out, the voice that was Donghun’s and the voice that wasn’t interchanging through screams.

It was a fight within his own body.

The spirits took on the forms of other creatures – but this one was inside Donghun’s _body_ , and they were both grappling for control.

A flash of fire streaked from his hands, and then electricity bolted after it. Gold flashed and a burst of bright lights popped through the air; blackness spread and green flames licked the ground around him.

And then, a white light and a fierce crack and two of the creatures holding back Junhee let out a shriek, falling lifeless.

“Go!”

It was Kasper’s shout, one filled with authority. On wings or by magic, the remaining spirits in their creature forms fled from the clearing.

Junhee was left alone where he crouched.

Donghun turned his eyes on him. Gold flashed – deep and desperate and filled with the boy he loved.

And then they turned black.

Donghun’s face twisted into a hungry snarl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things have sure taken a turn for the darker…
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed the second instalment! I’m so excited to see the boys back in Neverland.
> 
> Also… Kasper *heart eyes* *heart eyes* *heart eyes*. I know it’s technically a dark spirit and he’s evil as heck, but I love his deadly charms so much. If I were in Neverland, I would definitely fall for him and turn to the dark side.
> 
> With love,  
> The Indigo Dragonfly
> 
> [Come say hi on Twitter!](https://twitter.com/IndiDragonfly)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dragged back into Neverland by the evil spirits who once had posed as the Ateez pirates, Donghun and Junhee are caught defenceless. Kasper - a spirit in the form of a silver phaerie - has used their greatest fears against them. Showing Donghun an illusion of Junhee sleeping with another boy played on his greatest fear, and convinced him to accept taking back his magic.
> 
> But as Donghun's magic returned to his body, one of the spirits possessed him, taking him as a "pure vessel" rather than just assuming his likeness. With blackness creeping over his skin, he killed two of the creatures' forms, and turned his darkened eyes on Junhee...

Junhee backed away. One step. Another. A third.

No. He couldn’t run from the man he loved.

Donghun tilted his head, that insidious blackness swamping his eyes, darkness bleeding into the spun sugar of his wings. He stepped towards Junhee, lips curled up in a twisted smile, one that didn’t belong on that pretty face.

“Hun…” Junhee’s voice cracked, high and scared. “Hun, it’s me. Can you hear me? It’s Junhee…”

Donghun stumbled, clutching his throat, and his eyes lightened back to hazel and gold.

“Junhee…” he gasped. He staggered, one hand stretched out to him. “I can’t-”

His throat gargled and the spirit reclaimed him.

“Such a _pretty_ human,” he spat, the voice broken and _wrong, wrong, wrong._ He drew closer. “A pretty human, with his sweet-tasting blood.” He leaned down, tugging an arced dagger from the belt of a dead creature crumpled from the earlier blast of magic. “I was the one who drained it from you last time. And I’ve _missed_ the taste.”

Junhee stayed stock-still. His eyes slid to the other dagger, just a couple of paces away…

Donghun jumped for him, slamming him backwards onto the ground and raising the blade over him in one flash of movement.

Shock knocked the breath clean out of Junhee’s chest. Donghun’s hand pinned his wrists _hard_. It took a beat for the cold sting of pain on his cheek to blossom, followed by the wet warmth of blood. Just a nick of that sharp blade, and it was enough to break skin.

“Hun, please, it’s _me_.”

Black eyes blinked gold.

Donghun gasped, staring down into his face.

“Little one…” he choked, agony on his face as he fought back the spirit. “I can’t… I can’t hold it back…” He cried out, dropping the dagger with a clatter behind Junhee’s head. His weight came down on Junhee heavy. “You need to run!”

“I’m not leaving you-”

“You need to _run_!” Donghun jerked, his back arching, and he moaned helplessly, eyes screwed up. “I can’t fight it! I’m losing myself, I can’t… He’s pulling me down, and I can’t stop him… He wants to kill you…”

“Hold _on_ , please…” Junhee’s voice grew desperate and he grabbed Donghun’s black-webbed face with trembling hands. “How do we purge it? How do we get it out of you?”

“I don’t know,” Donghun gasped, and his eyes flashed black, but he fought it back with a howl of pain. “I don’t know what it is… It’s strong… I don’t know if I can make it leave…” His teeth gritted, tears leaking from his lashes as he trembled. “Junhee, _please_ , I’m begging you… Don’t make me be the one who kills you, _please_ …”

Tears began to choke Junhee’s throat.

“You’re still in here,” he cried, tugging Donghun’s face close, even as gold and black flashed in a battle of wills. “You’re the boy I love. Don’t let yourself get lost.” Donghun searched him, his eyes going distant and hazy as the spirit struggled to claim him completely. How could he hold onto him? How could he keep him with him? “You’re still the boy who likes to wrap himself in nothing but a warm blanket after a shower and sit by the radiator?” A tear slid down his face, desperately searching for memories, memories to dangle like a rope for Donghun to clutch while he was drowning. “Remember when we drove to the sea… and it was so sunny, and you leaned your head on the open window while I was driving, and your hair was caught in the wind, and you were laughing?”

“It’s taking me, little one…” Donghun’s hand clawed at the ground, and he fumbled for the dagger. He shoved the hilt at Junhee. “Take it-”

“I’m not hurting you!”

“If you don’t, I’ll kill you!” Donghun let out another piercing scream, and his body shook with the effort of holding on. “Kill me, please, Junhee, _please don’t let me hurt you-”_

Then his eyes turned dark, and the last goldness in his wings rotted to black.

Junhee stared at him.

He took a deep breath, and squeezed his eyes shut.

He slammed the hilt of the dagger into Donghun’s temple hard. It knocked him out immediately, and he rolled limp from on top of Junhee.

“Hun-” Junhee scrabbled up, leaning over him. A bright red mark glowed on his head from the blow, but his breathing grew regular, and Junhee touched his face desperately.

He had to get them away from here.

Junhee scooped up Donghun like a ragdoll, cradling him in both arms. His sweetheart was mutilated by the darkness, his warm skin bleached and graffitied with dark marks. Breathing hard, Junhee shot a glance at the blade on the ground. He shifted Donghun to drape over one shoulder, held him steady with a tight hand on the back of his thigh, and snatched up the dagger in his other hand before turning and breaking into a run.

Run. Run to where?

Stones cut into his bare feet like he was running on coral. Donghun’s limp weight unbalanced him as he ran helter-skelter down the mountain path, fingers painfully tight on the weapon he had no idea how to use. Cold air stung his lungs.

Run to _where?_

Neverland. They were in Neverland. Byeongkwan. Sehyoon.

The house. The little wooden house the Lost Boys lived in, at the foot of the mountain, nestled against the woods.

It was a direction, a destination, _something_ to hold on to. Sehyoon was a talented healer, he might be able to help. And Byeongkwan – Byeongkwan was strong. He could help Junhee tie Donghun down, or keep him unconscious… _Something_.

He just had to get away, away from the clearing, away from where the spirits could find-

Pebbles sprayed as Junhee skidded over, slamming onto his side and dropping Donghun and the knife.

“Hun… Hun, I’ve got you…” he cried weakly, scrambling to pull him back into his arms, and setting off once more.

The frostiness of the air lifted as he descended, and barren ground gave up to sprouts of grass. Sleeping flowers, petals curled in tight, began to line his path. Those great, beautiful blossoms would have given his heart cause to skip in any other circumstance – he was here, against all odds, back in _Neverland_. But there was no time to appreciate them now, no space in his head for anything but survival.

Time hadn’t touched the little wooden house. Junhee staggered, bare feet blistering as he stumbled across the grass, skirting the lake that once upon a time, he had sat on the edge of: skimming pebbles with Yuchan… watching the sunset with Donghun… But he had not time for nostalgia now. Making his shaking fingers work around the dagger hilt, he turned the doorknob and let himself into the main room.

“Byeongkwan?” His own voice sounded panicked and shaky, echoing back off wooden walls. His footsteps puttered to a stop, his one arm still tight around Donghun’s limp form. “S-Sehyoon?”

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, hope dwindled from his heart.

Moonlight trickled in through the open windows, and lit emptiness. The furniture was unchanged – still the low table around which they used to eat, still the simple wooden beds through the doorway to one bedroom. But the homeliness, the _essence_ of the Lost Boys who had lived here… It was all gone. No vases of flowers, no paper and quills, no thick blankets laid out over beds. Nothing but a thick layer of dust, and a sense that no-one had been here for a long time.

The twinge of fear in Junhee’s chest coincided with the spasm of pain in his shoulder. He crossed to the room he used to sleep in, along with Yuchan and Donghun, when he had been here. Gingerly, he lay Donghun down on his old bed. There was blood drying on his temple; Junhee’s blow had broken skin.

Junhee wasted no time. He scrabbled through the cupboard for something, _anything_ to help. Bare shelves… Bare shelves that once had been filled with tinctures and tonics. He ran to the long galley kitchen: again, everything was bare. No sign of the carefully blended petals he had watched created from the flowers that had been sung to by the Lost Boys.

Could he heal him? Junhee skittered back to Donghun’s side, feeling his forehead as though this were a mere sickness, as though black webbing hadn’t consumed his skin to mark another living _thing_ inside him. Could medicine help? Magic?

There was nothing here, but Junhee cast his mind back to all he had learned from the Lost Boys. When Donghun had nearly died fighting the spirits when they had taken the pirates’ forms, he had tended at his bedside for more than a week, learning how to mix plants to create healing properties… And Yuchan, Yuchan had been learning how to make tonics, and he had sat with Junhee and talked to him excitably about his progress…

What else could he do but try?

Ignoring his body’s ripples of pain, he lifted Donghun again, and fled once more from the house.

The woodlands behind the house were unrecognisable from the way he had seen them last. So much had been burned to embers, and in his own world it would have remained thus, nothing but charcoal. But here, where magic seethed through the very fabric of the air, the forest had healed fast, and leaves once more blanketed the canopy, shrubs and flowers flooding between tree trunks.

Junhee’s bare feet caught on twigs and tangles of moss. He had to _think_. His breath loud in his ears, he cast back to all he had learned. _Bluebells_. They healed physical wounds – just like the vesper sting that one night he and Donghun had uncovered a nest. _Frangipani._ It soothed mild sickness. _Orange Osmanthus._ For magically-sustained injuries. Could any of them help? This wasn’t an illness… But what other option did Junhee have..?

So he stumbled, his eyes scanning the forest floor. In the darkness, all the colours were muted, and fear made his vision tunnelled. Flowers normally identified with ease blurred together, and none of those that might help appeared to him. He staggered as his ankle got caught in a root.

A high shriek sounded in the distance.

Birds flapped above him and Junhee leaped from his skin. They fled their roosts, instinct driving them into the skies from that shrill sound. Junhee stared back over his shoulder, stock-still. Were the spirits coming after them? Were they tracking the eighth spirit, the one locked inside Donghun right now?

A little whimper of fear escaped his throat, and he turned, fleeing back through the woods, no longer looking for flowers.

_Run. Run. Run._

Junhee’s heart beat a frantic metronome as he ran, vines snagging his pyjamas and whipping his face. It grew darker, moonlight struggling to battle through as the canopy thickened. He ran blind, nothing in his mind but getting Donghun away from those _things_. All rationality abandoned him. Run. Save his boy. No matter what the cost.

He ran, and ran, and ran.

His feet slid underneath him faster than he could register it. His breath left him in a gasp as he tumbled onto his front, both him and Donghun falling hard to the forest floor. Junhee cried out, winded. On the ground, senses caught up with his body. His shoulder ached. His feet were cut and bloody. A slash on his arm stung. And it was dark. So dark, nothing but silhouettes of great, old trees could be made out across the clearing he found himself in.

He was deeper in the forest than he had ever gone before.

Hands shaking, he pulled Donghun up, leaning his unconscious body against a thick trunk.

“Hun?” Junhee’s dirty hands came to quiver on Donghun’s face, hesitating before they touched those grotesque black markings. “Hun, I don’t know what to do…”

It was so strange to see wings on his body again. Wings turned black by the spirit within, but wings all the same, where his shoulder blades had been smooth for so long. Junhee’s fingers slid to them, mind scattered. What now? What next? They were back in Neverland… Donghun was possessed… And he had his magic back.

A dull dizziness began to buzz in the back of his skull.

He looked up across the clearing sharply, and it only made everything swim harder. Fuck. He remembered this feeling: the one that made him feel drunk and disconnected. When he had first arrived in Neverland, that feeling had felt like red wine and warm sun, sat in the glade with Donghun for the first time. _Magic has addling effects on humans._ That’s what he had told Junhee, and good god, had Junhee forgotten its potency.

He needed to think straight. He needed to think of what to do.

But he was deep in the forest. Too deep. He wasn’t sure how to get out – which way even _was_ out? The trees and the plants and the flowers all sung out, bristling with magic, and the air felt thick with their influence.

His eyelids grew heavy, like the forest was hushing him with a lullaby. Swaying, he shifted closer to Donghun, leaning against his shoulder.

“Hun… I’ll save you… Don’t… don’t wake up before me…”

Through his dizziness, Junhee recognised the spark and crack of magic that passed between Donghun’s skin and his own as they touched – and then he blacked out into mindless oblivion.

~

Light. It was too light, and Junhee was sleeping.

Ugh. Couldn’t the darkness come back? He just needed a little more rest, another five minutes with his arm wrapped around this familiar waist, he-

His eyes opened and his consciousness coloured in the shapes around him quickly. Trees. The clearing. Light.

Junhee jolted upright, looking down at Donghun beside him. He was still unconscious, lips parted, face mauled by those black markings.

Wait…

Light..?

Without a doubt, white light was filtering through the trees from the other side of the clearing, casting silhouettes like a larger-than-life hand-shadow show. Junhee drew up into a crouch, fumbling for the dagger on the ground beside him. The light swelled, and Junhee raised the blade. It trembled in his hand.

Six silhouettes materialised in the light. Like inverse silhouettes, their outlines grew brighter, whiter, until Junhee had to put up a forearm to shade his eyes. They seemed so far away, and then all at once they were stood in the clearing, bright, too bright-

Junhee’s sweaty palm tightened on the hilt of the knife.

But the figures stopped their approach. Gradually, like water filtering between cracks in cupped hands, the light dimmed.

“Who are you?” Junhee’s voice cracked, but he raised it anyway. “I’ll fight you!”

It sounded feeble – precisely like a scared human boy brandishing a dagger he had no idea how to use. But he meant his words – if he had to fight some Neverlandian creatures to protect Donghun… he would do anything.

As the last of the light dimmed, Junhee’s eyes adjusted, and he was able to take in the six figures before him.

His heart gave a physical and profound skip.

For a moment, he just stared, his mouth falling open. The blade wavered and lowered in front of him.

For one goddamn moment, he thought he was never, _ever_ going to be able to tear himself from those eyes.

His breath quickened, his pulse picked up, and prickling warmth blushed up his body.

“ _Human_.”

The words tore through Junhee so hard he flinched. The voice was low and moderate, but it felt like it knocked against Junhee’s soul. He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry.

“Who are you?” he repeated, in nothing more than a squeak.

All six of the figures were male. They were all slim, lithe, and somehow snapped Junhee’s attention to each of them in turn like a venus flytrap with a helpless insect. They all but _glowed_ , deep caramel skin drenched in a magical aura. Their clothing was simple, but marks like royal jewels glittered down their throats, their forearms – one wore a cropped shirt that exposed a swirl of sapphire blue that flashed across his abdomen. Junhee stared, slammed with dizziness and nausea, unable to look away from that stomach…

A helpless whine escaped his lips before he could even register his own hypnotism.

It was like magnetism – deep, powerful, gripping magnetism. So strong that as the one who had spoken approached Junhee, he slipped to his knees and simply stared up at him, the dagger at his side forgotten.

The creature slipped a graceful hand under Junhee’s chin, and pulled his face up, angular eyes looking down into his. Junhee’s breath grew heavy.

_You can kill me. You could do anything. I can’t look away._

“You walk carelessly into this place only dokkebi may walk. And you bring darkness.”

Junhee stared into those eyes: dark, rich brown flecked with gold…

And then the hand pushed his face away. Junhee dropped the knife and put out a hand to steady himself against the ground, as the creature instead approached Donghun. He didn’t linger over the unconscious boy – he grabbed the front of his pyjama shirt and dragged him into the centre of the clearing. Junhee made a panicked lunge, forcing himself from his reverie, but his fingers missed Donghun’s by a fraction.

The six figures all looked down on Donghun’s form, faces impassive like the most beautiful statues. The one who had dragged him stood before Donghun, his sharp eyes unblinking, and raised an elegant hand. Junhee’s breath left him, obsessively studying those pretty fingers-

 _Stop_. Fuck, what was happening to him? What was-

The swirling whoosh of magic did snap Junhee from his thoughts. Like nothing more than a shifting breeze, the creature – _dokkebi?_ \- lifted Donghun up, hung in mid-air like a spider on an invisible thread.

“ _Wake_.” It was a commanding tone, so loaded with authority it made Junhee’s skin bristle.

Donghun opened his eyes. His black irises settled on the dokkebi, and he writhed, fighting at the force that held him captive. He hissed – the _spirit_ hissed – and the dokkebi’s face remained unchanged. He raised the other hand, and gradually compressed it into a fist.

The spirit let out a wail past gritted teeth, filled with agony. Junhee twitched closer, afraid. Was it hurting Donghun? Did he feel the pain of the spirit too?

Finally, his eyes blinked back to their normal, gentle gold.

For a long, drawn-out moment, Donghun hung, breathless. His eyes were fogged with pain, and then settled on the dokkebi before him. A moment of pure electricity whipped between them.

The expletives Donghun hissed scolded with their venom.

“Your words are dangerous for one filled with such cowardice.” The dokkebi’s face lowered into an expression much darker, as did that of the other five. “You left your homeland and gave up your magical birth right. I am disappointed.”

Donghun growled. “You’re one to talk of _fucking_ cowardice.”

For a moment, all Junhee could feel was the flash of relief in hearing him speak coherently. The dokkebi – was he supressing the spirit? Keeping it quelled? Donghun’s skin was still etched with darkness, his wings black, but his golden spark burned back in his eyes.

“We comply with the order of all things, and accept our place in that order.” The dokkebi stepped forward. “You left Neverland. You left our home to rot into darkness when you were the only one who might stop the blight of the spirits.”

“Only one!” Donghun wriggled in the air furiously, failing to escape those magical bindings. “If you’re so at home in the _order of things_ , why didn’t you do something! You talk of abandonment, while you hide out here away from the world in your corner of the forest! Hiding from life!”

“Our place is here. I will _not_ argue this with you.” The dokkebi’s voice became a snap, sharp as a leather whip. “You are a disappointment. I did not expect this from my only son.”

Junhee froze.

The words failed to reach his comprehension.

And then he stared, as the two men locked glares, their rich dark eyes filled with golden stars identical to one another.

His son. Junhee stared, heart pounding, at the dokkebi. Suddenly, that beautiful, angular, clever face echoed familiarity. The gold freckles marking his throat matched Donghun’s – Donghun was the same as these men, each with their gemstone markings like their bodies’ private constellations. He had wings, where they did not, but the rest was the same…

Junhee stared, skin lighting up with fire.

“You abandoned me!” Donghun strained desperately for freedom, his voice spitting poison. His eyes burned golden fire. “You did nothing but _conceive_ me, and abandon Mother and I because she was a phaerie and you thought we were _lesser_. You thought I wasn’t _pure_. You lost the right to call me your _son_.”

“Only dokkebi may stay in this sacred heart of the woods. You are not one of us.”

“I’m so _sorry_ for only being half of your fucking delusional kind.”

Junhee held his breath.

The golden dokkebi simply smiled. And Junhee so nearly passed out.

He put his hands flat out on the ground to hold himself up. His heart pounded, his blood rushed, and he let out nothing short of a keen just at the sight of his smile. Junhee squeezed his eyes shut, gasping away the lustful thoughts that burst behind his eyes. What… was… happening…

When he opened his eyes, the boy with sapphire markings crouched in front of him. His midnight blue eyes were quizzical, head tilted, and one hand held out to Junhee. He could sense every pair of eyes in the clearing were on him, but he would be damned before he could look away from this creature. He took his hand desperately – a burst of sparks passed between their skin - and allowed himself to be pulled up. His eyes fixated on his throat, on the swirl of blue freckles there, on the indentation of his collarbone…

“Killun, get the fuck off him.”

Donghun’s voice was a bitter drawl, and the sapphire boy looked over with round eyes.

“I have never seen one before.” His voice was like a song, filled with soft sounds and gently clipped words.

“So you have been playing with a human.” The golden dokkebi stated his remark, eyes still on Junhee. Donghun growled.

“I’ve not been _playing_ with anyone.”

“You should know better than to keep toys without magical blood-”

Donghun snarled. With a grimace, he wrenched his one arm free of the magic that held him, and slashed it through the air, breaking his bonds with a shattering of magic. He leaped forward on his wings and whipped one hand up, gripping the golden dokkebi by the throat.

“Say that one more time.”

The dokkebi raised one eyebrow. With a delicate hand and no effort, he took a fistful of Donghun’s top and threw him halfway across the clearing.

“Hun!”

Donghun rolled twice, dust kicking up around him as he spat on the floor, pushing himself back up to his knees. “I’m fine,” he spat.

“You know nothing of the order of things.” The dokkebi approached Donghun on graceful feet. His voice was low and dangerous. “You know nothing of who you are. You know nothing of who you are supposed to be. And now you come here, infected with darkness.” Donghun’s eyes flicked up, and Junhee detected the faintest flash of fear in them. The dokkebi reached Donghun, and stood over him. The air crackled. “You are audacious.”

The other dokkebi stepped closer, eyes dark.

Donghun cowered. Junhee had never seen him cower before anyone.

“Then we shall walk away and leave you.” The dokkebi’s stormy eyes bore into Donghun. “Let the spirit within you consume you. You mean nothing to us, if all you wish to achieve in coming here is to fight us.”

The dokkebi turned back towards the others. He began to walk away.

“Wait!”

He turned, gold-flecked eyes finding Donghun’s.

“Please.” The fight evaporated from Donghun’s voice. It left a quiver of fear behind. “Father, please. Help me.”

The dokkebi watched Donghun, his face neutral. With a delicate flick of fingers, he pulled Donghun up by unseen tendrils of magic, leaving him hung a foot from the forest floor.

“Since you were young, you’ve dreamed of light.” Donghun’s father spoke in a quiet tone, but it rang crystal clear in the dark woods. “You hold within you a store of magic so vast, at times it is beyond your control. You learned to supress that which was too strong, and now you must draw on your true potential and use it to end the darkness.” He paused. “I will help you purge this demon. Then, you must decide if you can finally accept your capabilities. You must purge seven more times for the darkness to lift.”

Junhee’s eyes shot between them helplessly. The words washed over him, and he didn’t understand what the dokkebi meant… Donghun’s face was set, a breath of fear slicked over firm resolve. He nodded once.

The seed of light burned into existence at the centre of Donghun’s chest.

It blossomed like a flower unfurling, tendrils of magic extending and twisting around Donghun’s body. At first, he watched it, and then his face twisted in pain. Junhee leaped as a bang of magic popped in the air, and Donghun, hung in the air, pulled at his hair and kicked his legs desperately.

The dokkebi held one hand out, his eyebrows pulled down in a frown. The light swelled brighter, and Donghun shrieked.

Amid the light, a dark mass began to seethe. Junhee flinched closer, a hand cast out in fear. The dark swirl continue to purge from Donghun’s chest, like extracted poison. The black from his skin and wings began to fade, but it was achingly slow and his scream turned into something feral.

“You’re hurting him!” Junhee scrabbled forward, appealing to the dokkebi.

“Get _back_ , human.” It was a command that left no room for debate. “It must be done.”

The light burned, magic whipping around Donghun. His voice broke on his scream, his entire body juddering with the strength of the purge. Junhee watched, stricken. It was going to kill him. They were _killing_ him. He couldn’t let them-

Junhee dived forward, ignoring the slam of whipping wind that smacked him as he drew close.

“It is nearly complete. Get _back_!”

But Junhee had to get to him. He reached out a hand to grab Donghun’s arm – and that was the moment it struck him. His hand fused against Donghun’s skin like a magnet, and there was no letting go.

He had never put much thought into what it would feel like to be struck by lightning. But if he had to imagine it – it would have been something like this.

Heat. Red – no, _white-_ hot heat. Electricity over every cell of his skin. So fierce, so ferocious, he couldn’t let out a scream. It held him immobile. Through the blinding light, a tendril of magic coiled around him, squeezing, compressing, and _burning_ through the barrier of his skin.

And then he fell to the ground.

The light faded, the roaring stopped, the magic dissipated. Junhee couldn’t breathe. Pain lanced his shoulders – _fuck_ , pain, so raw and violent, it was like his back was ripping open.

Every single sense was in overdrive. He cried out, his mind assaulted. Smells, colours, shapes, _attacking_ him.

He could taste colour.

He could see sound.

He could feel the scent of every flower in the woods.

The forest was alive, and it was singing, and he could hear every voice, drowning in its cacophony.

Two warm, familiar hands touched his cheeks, and lighting burst across his face. He cried out.

“Little one.” He opened his eyes to Donghun. The black rot had lifted from his skin, and now his golden freckles shone again. His wings were pure and cleansed. The spirit had been purged from him… But in his eyes shone fear. “Hold on, darling…”

Junhee cried out as his senses and the pain overwhelmed him. He closed his eyes, begging for darkness. The only relief was Donghun’s kisses pressed onto his face, like a soothing breeze on his skin.

He let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would snigger at Junhee getting the hots for his boyfriend’s dad, but… let’s be honest, we’ve all been there.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I promise that there will be fluff, softness and humour upcoming – the last two chapters have been darkness-ahoy! But plenty of sweet phaerie times will arrive too.
> 
> As always, thank you so much for your comments and kudos. Work is really busy for me right now, and though I love my job, it can make fitting in writing quite tricky! Your kind words really do spur me on, so thank you, thank you, thank you.
> 
> With love,  
> The IndigoDragonfly
> 
> [Come say hi on Twitter!](https://twitter.com/IndiDragonfly)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junhee fled on a wild escape through Neverland - carrying Donghun first to the abandoned house of the Lost Boys, and then deeper into the woods. An encounter with the dokkebi - a hypnotic and ancient species with strong power - revealed Donghun's true lineage. His father purged the demon from Donghun - but not before Junhee ran to his aid, and was swept up in a torrent of powerful magic...

Everything was soft, and warm.

Junhee shifted, nestling into the blankets around him. It was so silken against his skin, more silken than he could remember any bedding feeling. The fragrance of petals and earthiness was drifting in from somewhere. And there was _warmth_. He could feel its source not far from him. Was it a fireplace? But it moved…

His eyes fluttered open, and he blinked his vision into place so he could find out what was warming him.

“Little one…”

No fireplace - just Donghun, sat on a stool next to his bed. Little globes of magical light hung like lanterns against the ceiling, casting the room in a lick of amber.

“You’re warm…” Junhee murmured, his eyes heavy. There was a thick fog over his mind, like he was in a drink-induced dream.

“Warm? I feel your warmth too, little one.” Donghun shifted closer, moving onto the side of the bed. “Do you feel okay? Do you remember what happened?”

“Mh.” Junhee’s eyebrows knitted. He thought. “Where are we?”

“You’re in our house. Our old house. Well… The Lost Boys’ house.”

A piece of the puzzle clicked into place. Junhee nudged up onto one elbow, staring at the room in which he lay. A pang of familiarity hit him: he was in the same bed he had slept in during his time spent in Neverland. One bed used to be Donghun’s, and the third had been Yuchan’s, before…

“Why are we…” He trailed off, still trying to wade through the thickness of his consciousness. There was a distant buzzing, and he wasn’t sure if he was hearing it, or feeling it, but it was distracting. He looked up into Donghun’s face for assistance, and met his gold-brown eyes.

His breath caught.

The spirits. The forest. The dokkebi. Donghun’s father, purging the spirit from his son with blinding magic, and Junhee had tried to help him, and-

Junhee sat up too fast. He gasped, his head swimming, and Donghun reached out to steady him. His hands were warm and soothing on Junhee’s shoulders.

“Easy…” he murmured, pushing him back against his pillows with gentle force.

“Are you okay?” Junhee gasped. “You’re…” He stopped, eyes roaming over Donghun. He no longer wore his pyjamas, dressed instead in the snug black clothes he wore in Neverland. His skin had lost its pallidity, replaced once more by a healthy glow.

“I’m fine.” Donghun’s voice remained gentle. “The spirit’s dead. It’s just me.” He hesitated. “It’s you I want to worry about.”

Junhee sank back against the pillows. “I feel… I feel strange.”

“I gave you some sedative.”

Junhee looked up. “Why?”

Donghun swallowed. Junhee’s mind was blurry, but he didn’t miss the concern on his face. He sat up again, a weak pain rippling in his back. He reached a hand over his shoulder to rub at the soreness, and his fingers connected with something.

Warm, and silken, and connected to his skin.

His heart stopped beating.

“Junhee…” Donghun leaped after him as he pushed himself onto unsteady feet. “Please, let me talk to you first-”

But his words didn’t halt Junhee in time. He stopped, motionless, in front of the mirror.

The reflection wasn’t him. _Couldn’t_ be him.

Donghun was already talking to him, gentle words in soothing tones, but Junhee’s breath grew too loud in his own ears to listen. He stared, simply _stared_ , at the iridescent violet wings lancing out from his back. At the shimmer of deep purple in his once plain brown eyes.

Sedative, shock, sickness – whatever was the cause, Junhee’s own reflection blurred, and he fainted into Donghun’s arms.

~

The second time he came around, Junhee’s head was clearer. A comforting weight lay across his stomach; he lifted his head to find Donghun lay alongside him in the bed, one arm draped over him. His dark eyes were open, watching him as he came to.

“My little one.” Donghun sat up as he did, holding onto his waist. Junhee searched his face, his heartbeat picking up speed.

“It… wasn’t a dream, was it?” he croaked, tears welling in his eyes. He daren’t look back over his own shoulder… But when Donghun shook his head, he couldn’t fight the urge to look at the wings behind his back. He gasped on a breath, trembling where he sat.

“Don’t cry, Junhee…” Donghun murmured, as the first droplet raced down Junhee’s cheek. “It’s going to be okay.”

“How…” Junhee’s tears choked the rest of his words. He reached shaking fingers to touch one wing; he felt the sensation in both his fingers and the wing _, his_ wing… Panic began to rise up his chest. He couldn’t breathe. There was something buzzing or ringing or chiming and he could smell and hear and taste it and-

He folded as Donghun wrapped his arms around him.

Whenever he was sad, he held Donghun. For two years, he had gone to him whenever he needed comfort. Rude customers, the fallout with his parents, bouts of winter sickness… It didn’t matter the cause, Donghun’s arms around him were his panacea.

But now it felt different. Junhee clutched onto him, aware of that same warmth he had woken up to earlier. It was like a little sphere of fire hung within Donghun’s core, and pressing against him and closing his eyes meant he could thaw against its heat. Donghun’s rough fingers stroked his bare arm, and it was at once static and velvet, the barrier of two different skins blurring into something indistinct.

On some base level, it soothed him. _Safety, protection, love_ , it said, without the need for words.

“Listen to me.” Donghun drew away just enough to look into Junhee’s face. Junhee scanned his expression, desperate to hold onto the calmness in his features as his own hands shook. “You’re going to be okay. I know it’s a shock, but it can’t hurt you, and I’m going to be right here for you.”

Junhee said nothing. His wet eyes stayed on Donghun’s, and he focussed on that source of heat within him that kept him from hysteria.

“What happened to me?” he croaked eventually.

Donghun took his hands. “You stepped straight into raw, unbridled magic.” He smoothed back Junhee’s hair. “The magic was breaking down the barrier of my very essence to split it from that of the spirit.” Junhee’s mind flashed back to the clearing in the woods: the bright light, the wind, the crackle of _power_ … “The moment you touched me, the barriers between the cores of our beings… well, collapsed, I suppose. Only briefly. But long enough for a part of me, and what’s normally kept _within_ me, to… pass into you. And your body responded to that.”

Junhee swallowed. “Magic?”

“Yeah.” Donghun’s gold-flecked eyes watched him closely. “A bit of my magic.”

He had magic.

Him. Ordinary, plain, human Junhee.

“Does it… Does it mean I’m a phaerie now?” The last word wobbled, and he squeaked as he tried to hold back his tears. This was a lot to take in, and while being human had never been a conscious part of his identity, the prospect of losing it shook him to the core.

“Not strictly. You can’t genetically change your species. You just changed some of your characteristics.”

Perhaps it showed on his face: the raging torrent of fear, shock, disconnection, panic… Because Donghun squeezed his hand, and _smiled_. A smile, in amongst all this darkness, and strangeness, and desperation… Junhee felt his body physically release some of the tension it was carrying, because if Donghun was smiling, it meant things might turn out okay.

“Junhee, no matter what’s happened to you… It’s temporary, okay?” Donghun’s tone was soothing. “Don’t forget – when we leave Neverland, and the sun rises… You’ll lose your wings, and your magic, just like I did. So will I. We just need to get home.”

Junhee nodded, the realisation washing through him like a cool breeze. Of course. All he had to do was face sunrise in his own world.

“And, until then,” Donghun said softly, edging closer and lifting his knuckles to kiss them. “You’re still the same person, aren’t you?” He turned Junhee’s hand over, playing with his fingers with a little half-smile. “You’re still my little one-” He kissed his palm, and his lips sent sparks dancing across his skin. “Little one with his tiny hands.”

“They’re not tiny…” he protested weakly, but he sagged against Donghun’s kiss in relief. Warmth unfurled in his chest.

Being back in Neverland still felt like an illusion. The drench of moonlight from those three white orbs, the whir of insects and distant calls of creatures beyond his wildest daydreams… The entire time he had spent here last time had blurred into nothing but a mental painting, a canvas woven from nothing but his imagination. But here he was, once again, and Neverland was as real as ever.

A sound escaped his lips as he pulled away from Donghun.

“I feel strange,” he murmured, glancing out the window with eyebrows knitted.

“Strange how?”

“My head.” Junhee paused, searching for words to explain that weird sensation. “I don’t think it’s the sedative. It’s… It’s like there’s a sound buzzing in the background. But when I try to listen to it, I can’t hear anything.” He glanced at Donghun. “Like when your ears are ringing, only… it’s not white noise, it’s…”

“…A song?” Donghun watched him, and Junhee nodded. “That’s… magical awareness.” He sat back against the wall, his eyes unfocussed and distant as though he too couldn’t find the words to explain. “Creatures with magic can sense magic in other entities. So… What your sensing are the pinpricks of magic from creatures – and flowers - all across Neverland.”

Junhee’s eyes widened.

“That’s… a thing?”

“Yeah.” Donghun pushed a hand back through the long waves of his hair. “I… I didn’t really realise how big a thing it was until I came to be with you.” His eyes flicked up to Junhee’s. “And I lost it.”

It took a beat for Junhee to realise what he meant.

Of course, without his magic in his veins, Donghun would have been cut off from this strange sixth sense. And just as Junhee felt completely surreal having gained it, he couldn’t imagine _losing_ a sense he’d always had…

“Hun…” He reached out until their fingers touched. “Wasn’t that… difficult?”

Donghun gave him a lopsided smile. “It was like I’d gone deaf.”

Junhee’s heart twisted. For a moment, they sat in silence, both listening to that vast song that could be all at once heard, and felt, and seen with sightless eyes.

And one voice rose above the chorus. Junhee closed his eyes, so very aware of that bundle of warmth that radiated from Donghun, washing over him in thick, hot waves. Without them even touching, it felt all at once powerful, and delicate, and intimate.

“I can feel you.” He murmured it without opening his eyes, and jumped when fingers touched his own in a pop of tingles.

“I can feel you too, little one.” Junhee shuddered at the kiss pressed into his neck, still eyes closed, willing that throbbing warmth to engulf him whole.

“Why’s yours so… strong?” He opened his eyes, looking at Donghun with heavy eyes.

“Because I have a really strong source of magic.” Donghun drew back, one eyebrow arched with a hint of playfulness. “Not to brag. But I do. But also… I feel it with you too.” Donghun’s eyes slid to Junhee’s chest, as though seeing into his own well of magic, and his tongue licked over his bottom lip. It made Junhee’s insides constrict. “I don’t know… I’ve been around strong magic all my life but… You… Maybe it’s because your magic comes from me? Because we’re sharing something that used to be whole?”

It pleased Junhee endlessly that Donghun felt the strength of that connection.

“So your magic is so strong… Because you’re… a..?” he trailed off, watching as Donghun adjusted both his legs and wings to a position on the bed more comfortable.

“A dokkebi? Half. Yeah.”

“Dokkebi…” The word felt alien in Junhee’s mouth, and Donghun looked away as he spoke it, discomfort on his face.

“Dokkebi were some of the first creatures in Neverland. For a time, they were like the land’s caretakers. Eventually, they withdrew into the depths of the woodlands, and that’s where they’ve been ever since.” Donghun traced one of his freckles with an absent fingertip. “My… father and mother slept together not long after they met. Dokkebi don’t take mates outside their own kind, but it doesn’t mean they won’t fuck another species. Anyway… she ended up pregnant with me.”

Donghun looked down at his hands, a flash of frustration on his face. “She went back to other phaeries to go through her pregnancy and give birth, but when I was born, I looked so much like a dokkebi, and I was already stronger than any of the other phaeries. My mother took me back to the woodlands to my father, and begged him to take us in. He… obviously said no.”

“How do you know all this?” Junhee asked delicately. He omitted the end of the sentence: _because your mother died when you were only five._

“Because I went back, once. I was about eleven years old. I was exploring deeper into the woodlands, and I got drawn by the sense of their magical power, and I stumbled right into where the dokkebi are.” Donghun snorted. “I was found by one of those you saw in the clearing. Killun. He took me to my father and I was told with no softening of the details.”

 _Killun_. Junhee’s mind flashed back to the clearing, and to the boy with sapphire freckles sweeping across his throat and midriff. He swallowed hard, heat rising up his face at the memories of his own whining and staring.

Whether Donghun caught his blush or simply sensed his discomfort, Junhee didn’t know – but Donghun tilted his head and caught his gaze.

“They’re the most powerfully magical creatures in all of Neverland, little one… If they made you feel unlike yourself…”

Junhee felt his entire body flush.

Donghun might have tried not to smirk, but he failed.

“I’m sorry.” Junhee played with his bangs to cover his hot face. “I don’t know what came over me…” Donghun snickered but Junhee swallowed. “Is that… is that why I’m so attracted to you?”

“No, that’s because I’m very fucking handsome.” Junhee rolled his eyes and Donghun’s grin softened to a gentle smile. “I mean… perhaps a little?”

Junhee looked away. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. The idea that a source of magic could make him come undone that way…

“Hey.” Donghun gave him a gentle nudge, and mirth danced in his dark eyes. “As long as you don’t try to fuck my dad.”

Junhee simultaneously went scarlet, glared, and cuffed Donghun over the back of the head.

“You know I would never fuck _anyone_ else,” he grumbled, once the colour had faded from his face and Donghun had stopped cackling. He meant it as a begrudgingly affection, but as the words left his lips, he froze. He saw it on Donghun’s face too: they were thinking the same thing. The nightmare Kasper had shown him back up in the mountains. The illusionary Junhee, and his scarlet lover.

“Hey…” He reached out, slipping his fingers into Donghun’s. Donghun kept his eyes turned away. “What Kasper showed you… You know that would never happen, don’t you?”

Donghun was quiet for a beat longer than Junhee had hoped for.

“Yeah.” His voice was quiet, but his eyes nervously found Junhee’s. “When I… I got possessed, and you shouted that it hadn’t been the real you… I knew I’d been stupid.” He swallowed. “But I… In the moment, it was… it was the thing I’ve always been scared of.”

Junhee’s heart twisted. “You really think I’d fuck someone else?”

“Not like that.” A strand of Donghun’s hair fell into his eyes. “You have a golden heart, little one, and I know you wouldn’t just do something callous. But… What if you felt stuck with me… and you fell in love with someone else? Or I wasn’t satisfying you anymore…” Junhee tried to interrupt but Donghun continued. “What then? Could I even blame you for finding someone else? If you’d made a mistake you could never get out of?”

“Hun.” Junhee turned to sit directly in front of Donghun, forcing him to look at him. “I _love_ you. I’m not with you for sex or your magic or any other _ridiculous_ thing like that. When I met you… Yes, you were different, and you had magic, and you were strong. And yes… perhaps the dokkebi in your blood drew me to you physically, in some way.” Junhee shook his head. “But I didn’t just get drawn to you. I fell in _love_ with you. I fell in love with the way you loved tulips, and swore like a sailor, and the way this big laugh bursts out of you when you’re happy.” Junhee’s hand slipped onto his waist. “You saved my life when I was just a human boy getting mugged in an alleyway. And then you had my back every time after that… I fell in love with you, not your magic; with who you are, not _what_ you are. You _have_ to start believing in that.”

“…I do believe that.”

“Okay. Then you’ve got to know I would never even _look_ at someone else.”

Donghun looked up, a trace of that naughty twinkle back in his eyes. “Not even my dad?”

“Oh, fuck _off_.” Junhee pushed him hard, and grinned as Donghun wrestled him down, pushing his back onto the bed covers.

Donghun’s long hair tickled both their faces as their lips met, and Junhee relished the moment of normalcy. There were a hundred questions he needed to ask – not least, how the hell they were going to get home. But whether it was the sedative or just the ordeal he had been through, or that great, burning warmth glowing from Donghun that told him _be calm_ , he was happy to have a moment to slip his arms around his Lost Boy, pull him over him and kiss him softly.

It was not all that easy to remain soft.

Junhee was used to the way magic in Donghun’s veins made touching him feel shocking. Every touch in Neverland, and then after every bout of recurring magic back home, Donghun’s skin sent tingles through his entire being and drove every sense into overdrive. But this… This was different. Junhee kissed him hungrily from where he was lay on his back, a primal instinct driving him to delve for more of what he was getting given.

“Hey,” Donghun managed, pulling back even though Junhee leaned up to chase his mouth. “Can I touch your wings?”

Junhee wanted to laugh. He grinned up at Donghun, nonplussed. “You can touch whatever you-”

His entire body jerked as Donghun touched one little finger to the satiny violet of one wing. The touch withdrew and he gasped, toes curled tight. It wasn’t unpleasant, but nor was it pleasant. It was like… fingers, stroking _inside_ his body, a deep tug that he felt _everywhere_.

He remembered the first night in Neverland, where he had gone wandering through the woods and sat with Donghun in a glade of flowers. Drunk on the potency of the petals, he had touched Donghun’s wing when walking behind him, and he still remembered the yelp and the glare he had gotten in response. Now he understood why…

Donghun’s fingers returned, watching with curiosity as he touched, and Junhee tried to stop himself quivering from head to toe. But when Donghun dipped his head and ran his tongue along one amethyst sinew, he let out a shaky whine.

“They’re so beautiful,” Donghun murmured against his ear. “Skies, look at you.” He looked down into Junhee’s face, his eyes fogged. “You look so fucking pretty.”

“So do you.” And it was the truth – Junhee didn’t love Donghun for his magic, but _god_ were his gold freckles and gilded wings so beautiful.

Donghun leaned back to press his lips to one wing from his position crouched over him, and Junhee gritted his teeth, digging his hand into Donghun’s hip. It was both absolutely unbearable and totally addictive, leaving him fighting a battle between wanting to push Donghun off with a cry and letting it send tugs of sensation down to his crotch until he was so hard it was painful.

He settled for pulling Donghun over to kiss his mouth instead, needing to feel his tongue, _needing_ it, because fuck, that great warmth inside him was growing and spreading and leaking over both of them and it made Junhee want to scrabble as close as he could get. He palmed at Donghun through his pants, dizzy and disconnected and absolutely hooked on connecting with him every way, every _where_.

“I… need… you…” Junhee managed. He wrenched Donghun’s pant buttons open and tugged the material down with starving fingers, and wrapped his hand around his length. Donghun’s hips jerked, and he pressed his forehead against Junhee’s.

“We… Ugh, fuck… We shouldn’t…”

He cut himself off with a groan. Junhee watched, starry eyed and lips parted, as Donghun worked himself against his palm. Energy burned Junhee’s hand, and it felt _so good_ , and that was just his hand, was Donghun feeling that-?

“Oh my fucking god.” At any other time, Junhee would have grinned and teased Donghun for using a curse that wasn’t native to Neverland, something he had picked up from Junhee or dramas he had watched back home. But not now. Donghun pushed himself back to kneeling, leaning back on his hands, and Junhee sat up with him, letting out a noise of desire as Donghun’s hips stuttered up to meet his hand. Donghun moaned, his thrusts hard and erratic, and Junhee gripped harder-

“Wait!”

Junhee released his hand.

Donghun gasped, lips still parted and eyes still closed. Only as their skin disconnected did Junhee become aware of the heat in the air, and the swirl of blue light that spiralled across the room before fading out. His eyes widened.

“Yeah… we need to wait.” Donghun took a very deep breath, looking at Junhee with a grin flickering around his face. It turned into a wince as he struggled to rebutton his pants.

“Wait..?” Junhee echoed dumbly, but he was still looking at the room with the last fading of its light show.

“You were doing that.” Donghun leaned to peck Junhee chastely on the cheek, and nodded at the room with an eyebrow raised. “That was you.”

Junhee’s eyes went wide. “Magic..?”

“Yeah.” Donghun took a steadying breath and pushed back his hair. “We’re going to need you to have a _little_ more control before we get your emotions all fired up.”

Junhee flushed, on the cusp of trying to come back with something witty, but a dull thud from beyond the room halted his words.

He froze, tuned into the noise. He looked at Donghun quickly – it sounded like the door had just shut. But Donghun’s face was calm, and he even gave a flash of a smile.

“Sorry, I hadn’t got that far in what I was telling you,” he said cryptically, and jumped up off the bed. “Come on.” Junhee took the hand he held out for him, and followed him from the bedroom.

His heart skipped fully, and he let out a gasp of flooding relief.

“Long time, no see, stranger.”

Byeongkwan and Sehyoon were both lit by the globes of magical light hung around the room, casting stars glistening on their respective deep blue and silver wings. Byeongkwan’s lips curled up into a smile as Junhee pushed past Donghun and ran to him, throwing his arms around his neck.

“Kwan…” he cried in delight, before moving to embrace Sehyoon just the same. “I came here before and it was empty, I thought…”

“You thought we might have copped it? Huh. Ye of little faith.” Byeongkwan grinned, pushing a hand through his hair – it was longer, and with a pang Junhee noticed his face was gaunt and shadowed. “It’ll take more than the apocalypse to finish off Sehyoon and I.”

“The apocalypse..?” Junhee glanced at Sehyoon – he too looked thin and tired. But both boys wore excitement in their eyes, a genuine happiness to see him again.

“Well… an eternal night and eight demons hell-bent on revenge seems pretty ‘apocalypse-y’ to me.”

“What’s going on here? How did the spirits come back when we killed them? How did one of them possess Hun..?”

Byeongkwan stepped past him, trading a look with Donghun. “Let’s make some dinner first. We’ve got a _lot_ to talk about.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading Chapter 4 - I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> The old gang is back together, hurrah! Oh, and Junhee has *magic*, which is so fun and exciting... I've been so excited to write this for so long..!
> 
> Thank you endlessly for any kind comments and kudos, it really does inspire me to keep going and make me smile.
> 
> With love,  
> The Indigo Dragonfly
> 
> [Come say hi on Twitter!](https://twitter.com/IndiDragonfly)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junhee woke up in the comfort of the Lost Boys' old house and was relieved to find Donghun freed from his spiritual possession. But in a moment of blurring during the Dokkebis' purge, a part of Donghun's magic has passed to him, granting him wings and his own source of power.
> 
> Thankfully, Sehyoon and Byeongkwan are on hand with answers...

For a night following a demon possession, a transfiguration of his own body, and the pressing foreboding of an eternal night, Junhee felt unexpectedly calm.

In part it was the familiarity of sitting at the low table in the Lost Boys’ house, with nostalgic sounds of clattering pans and crackling fires, and mouth-watering scents drifting over from where Sehyoon and Byeongkwan were cooking. The globes of magical light the boys had created doused the space in such a warm glow that it was almost possible to forget that the darkness reigned outside.

But it was also in part the Lost Boys themselves. Junhee watched them, some of that awful tension from the kidnapping leaving his back and shoulders as he watched them bustle around, dodging each other as they prepared their hearty meals of plant-based food.

Junhee leaned his elbows on the table and sighed. It was curious, the way he could sense their magic now. Like a little ball of energy sat inside their cores, and beamed out to him like a lighthouse communicating through the night. He felt at peace – like he was in a pack, or… a family. Their presences reassured him.

But they were nothing on the presence beside him. Junhee glanced at Donghun, who was sat cross-legged, frowning in concentration as he blended petals that Byeongkwan and Sehyoon had brought with them in their packs. His warmth was huge, like a gentle trill permanently calling out to Junhee’s consciousness: _I’m here,_ it said, and he couldn’t ignore it even if he tried. Subconsciously, he shifted closer to Donghun, wanting to be at his side.

Eventually, Byeongkwan and Sehyoon finished preparing the food and brought it over to the table, piling dishes in front of them. Junhee realised with a pang that his belly was achingly empty. The three of them began to tuck in, while Donghun didn’t look up from his work.

“Hun.” Byeongkwan watched him, but he didn’t look up. “Hun, eat.”

“Hm?” Donghun looked up, snapped from his concentration, and seemed surprised to find he had been surrounded by company and food. He blinked, his eyes serious and tired. Junhee’s chest twisted; it had taken so little time for Donghun to revert back into leader of the Lost Boys. Donghun leaned over, handing Junhee the jar of liquid. “Drink this.”

“Thanks..?” Junhee said dubiously, eyeing the dark green liquid with uncertainty.

“You know we get our magic from flowers, right? Well, now so do you. They can be used for certain purposes, but this is a general tincture to keep your bodily magic sustained. So drink.”

Junhee hesitated, and then downed the thick mixture. He winced at the bitterness but it immediately warmed his insides.

“So… how long was I out for? And… how did we get back here?” Junhee had been told they could talk through everything once dinner was cooked, and he couldn’t wait for answers any longer.

Byeongkwan took a mouthful of mashed tuber, and let out a long sigh. He looked like he was in great need of a hearty meal. “About a day.” He raised an eyebrow and nodded outside at the blackness. “It’s permanently pretty much pitch black, but the moons only rise at night, so… we can tell whether it’s night or day, at least.”

Donghun nibbled delicately at a root vegetable. “Do you want to start from the beginning?”

“Mm.” Byeongkwan swallowed another mouthful and then sat back, his eyes going distant. “That’s as good a place to start as any.

“So,” he began. “As you know, when Donghun was here for the year after you left, Junhee, we worked endlessly to regrow the flowers and trees. And then when he left to be with you, another year passed, and things were actually looking up. With magic, everything grows so much faster, and there were few traces left of the fires. All the creatures regained their strength, too.

“The Ateez pirates worked hard as well. They were building their new ship – _The Aurora_ – to replace _The Crescent_. They set sail that year – things were stabilising, and they were itching to be back at sea. Who knows what horizons they were aiming for but…” He swallowed. “We don’t know where they are now… not after everything.”

Junhee nodded, reminding himself to eat. Unique flavours burst on his tongue and he savoured them while listening.

“And so a year or so after Hun left… darkness fell. The sun just never rose one morning. All of us sensed it – there was a source of enormous magic at play. And that’s when we were attacked.” His eyes flickered to Sehyoon’s. “And we learned that we hadn’t killed off those creatures at all.”

“How?” It blurted from Junhee’s mouth and he looked between the three phaeries. “I saw you kill them on the ship. How could they come back?”

“They aren’t just spirits, they’re Demons.” Byeongkwan met his eyes. “We’ve spent all this time learning what we can about them… Their natural forms aren’t tangible, so they choose creatures to mimic in order to materialise. They have to have physical contact with that creature, and then they can assume their form. They usually try to choose strong magical creatures to copy, because when they become their doppelganger, they take on their magical properties and physical attributes.”

Junhee, in his wildly desperate search to comprehend, fell upon his only point of reference. “Like a Ditto?”

Donghun, Byeongkwan and Sehyoon all looked at him blankly.

Ah. Neverlandian phaeries probably didn’t understand Pokémon references.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Carry on.”

“When a Demon takes on a form in this way, and that form is killed, the spirits are re-released into the world. They’re weakened, for a time, but they’re capable of finding a new form to mimic after some time. That’s what happened with the Ateez pirates. They took their forms, and when we thought we’d ‘killed’ them, all that we did was end those forms, and release the spirits back into the ethers.”

Junhee nodded slowly, absently skewering a leaf on his plate.

“But… What happened with Donghun?” he asked. “That thing, it was _inside_ him. They didn’t make a copy of him. It was in his body.”

“Yeah.” This time, Donghun answered him, his eyebrows knitted together and his food untouched. “Demons _can_ directly possess someone. But it’s a massive risk - if the host’s body is killed, the spirit is killed too – they don’t get released into the ether. So if I’d have died with it in me, it would have been dead too. Permanently.” He gave a dark smile. “Unfortunately for the Demon, the Dokkebi were able to kill it without killing me too. Handily.”

“Yeah.” Byeongkwan snorted. “One down, seven to go.”

“So…” Junhee thought aloud. “Does that mean… Kasper’s a phaerie, right? So the spiri- the Demon took on the form of another phaerie..?”

The Lost Boys exchanged a glance.

“Yes.” Byeongkwan sighed. “They took the form of three sirens – the sea creatures you’ve seen before, three dokfor – the big ones with the black skin and white markings - and one phaerie.” He swallowed. “We studied them for a long time, and when we were doing that, we tried to find the original creatures they’d mimicked. We wondered if they had them captive, as they had done with the pirates.” Byeongkwan trailed off.

“We only found their bodies.” Junhee jolted as Sehyoon spoke softly. He was a man of few words, but these words lanced Junhee with sorrow.

“They killed a phaerie..?” Junhee knew it was a tragedy to kill any living creature, but a phaerie… He felt a tug in his heart, knowing one of Donghun’s own had been murdered, knowing how rare they were…

“We never found the phaerie’s body.” Byeongkwan took over once more. “But you know what happens to our bodies when we die. Our magic is powerful and it consumes our mortal form until there’s nothing left. Like with…”

He didn’t have to say it. _Like with Yuchan._

A nerve twitched in Donghun’s jaw. He and Junhee rarely spoke about Yuchan, because that particular wound had never healed. Donghun still blamed himself for his death, still tore himself apart for choosing to go after the tulips and ultimately leading Yuchan to the Demon that had murdered him. And Junhee too would always remember that sparkling smile fading from Yuchan’s face for the last time, and the way his wings had faded out to nothing on the beach before his magic had taken his body.

“Anyway,” Byeongkwan said, looking down as he nudged his food. “We learned what we could, but we couldn’t find a way to bring them down. They’re… _so_ strong, stronger than they were before. And there’s only two of us. And we’re… not Hun.” He shrugged. “It would have been suicidal to attack. They attacked us here a second time and so we had to leave, and we went deep into the woods. And that’s where we’ve been hiding out since.”

Junhee swallowed hard. He hated the idea of Sehyoon and Byeongkwan being forced away from their home, into the endlessly dark forest, ever on the run. No wonder they looked so unwell.

“We even sought out the Dokkebi, looking for help…”

“You did?” That got Donghun’s attention, and he looked at Byeongkwan keenly.

“Yeah. But we got nothing more than riddles about fate and light and darkness.”

Donghun snorted hard. “Sounds about fucking right.”

“They did tell us one thing that was useful.” Sehyoon shifted, his pearly wings catching in the light. “The Demons are more powerful in the darkness. That’s why they prefer an endless night.”

“How did they even do that?” By now, Junhee had given up the pretence of eating, abandoning his utensils and looking between the Lost Boys. “You can’t just… stop the sun rising. Can you?”

“We don’t know for sure,” Byeongkwan said slowly. “We have a theory that they’ve grown stronger between incarnations. And… that’s probably because of the human blood they’ve had access to.”

Junhee’s memories flashed back. Tied to the mast of _The Crescent_. Pirates draining his blood. He swallowed.

“My blood… made them stronger?”

“Not just yours.” Byeongkwan’s voice took on a gentle tone. “Amiri’s too.”

Junhee glanced at Donghun. The name of his ex-lover didn’t make him look up, but a flash of pain crossed his eyes that he wasn’t able to mask. Junhee willed that the magical warmth inside him could touch Donghun the way his did in return. He knew how much Donghun’s heart still bled for the human he had loved before Junhee, the human who had betrayed him and joined the evil pirates in search of power. The human who Donghun had been forced to kill in order to save Sehyoon.

“So… they have strength to do incredible things.” Byeongkwan cleared his throat delicately. “However they’re causing this darkness… we have no way of reversing it. Not without finding a way to kill the Demons. For good, this time.” He sighed. “Anyway, that’s where we are. We were hiding out in the woods when we sensed this _ridiculous_ surge of magic, and we came running to find out what was happening. Turns out it was this one getting exorcised by his daddy-dearest.”

Donghun shot Byeongkwan a dark scowl that made the blue-winged boy grin.

“And we brought you back here,” Sehyoon added. “It isn’t the safest, but now we have Donghun again…”

“Yeah, yeah. Skies, I turn my back for a minute and you get yourself into a whole end-of-the-world fuck-up. Trust me to have to save your sorry asses.”

“Huh. Maybe they should have left you to get eaten up by your parasite friend after all.”

They descended naturally into their sharp camaraderie, and Junhee went back to eating. It was a lot to take in – just like when he had arrived in Neverland last time, he thought drily. Back then, Byeongkwan’s explanation of how magic worked had sent his head spinning sat at this very table.

Once the plates had been scraped clean, they agreed to retire to their beds. It had been an exhausting day for everyone.

“Are you-” Junhee began as he walked into the room he was sharing with Donghun, but he cut himself short. Donghun looked up with a smile at his entry, but Junhee’s heart still skipped. He was sat on Yuchan’s bed, the blankets and pillow untouched from the night he had kicked them away on the day he had passed.

“I found this.” Donghun gave another smile, this one a little strained. He held up his hand and at first, Junhee couldn’t see anything. He closed the door quietly and stepped closer, and his heart gave a profound tug. Between Donghun’s thumb and finger: a single cherry-red hair.

“Donghun…”

“It’s okay,” Donghun said with a shake of his head, returning the hair to the pillowcase. “I just miss him.”

“Of course.” Junhee stood next to him and smoothed his curled hair. “He’s always with you, you know that, right?”

“Yeah.” Donghun got to his feet, walking across to the window and leaning his hands on it. His eyes searched out over Neverland. “There’s something else that’s on my mind too.” Junhee waited quietly. “What Byeongkwan and Sehyoon were saying about how the Demons have grown stronger because of the blood they took from you and Amiri.”

“Yeah..?”

“What if… What if the mixture Kasper gave me to give my magic back… What if it wasn’t ixcorn blood?” Donghun looked round, his eyes dark with anxiety. “Ixcorns are really rare and _really_ powerful, but…”

Junhee swallowed. “But you think it could have been human?”

Donghun’s face submerged in guilt.

“Hun…” Junhee moved to stand beside him at the window, putting a gentle hand on his waist. “I know that human blood is… Well, it’s all kinds of forbidden here.” He tilted his head. “But what’s done is done, and it doesn’t make me angry or anything. You didn’t know...”

“But little one,” Donghun cut in, aghast. “You don’t understand. When Amiri was lured away by the spirits as pirates, we knew they would be using his blood – probably willingly – to get stronger. You have no idea how _sick_ that made me. And then when they took yours? You saw what happened. I nearly _killed_ myself to get back at them for what they did. How can I feel those things and know that I… I…”

He couldn’t bring himself to even say it. Junhee pulled him in close, a faint smile tugging at his lips in spite of everything.

“Then it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve swallowed bodily fluids from me, would it?”

Donghun stared at him, struck dumb. And then he snorted, his face disgusted. “What a revolting way to put it.”

Junhee grinned, tickling his ribs. “Well it’s not untrue. Stop beating yourself up.”

They got ready for bed together, and Junhee welcomed the feel of cool sheets on his skin. He watched, leaned on one arm, as Donghun pulled off his clothes, oblivious to being watched. The gold constellations of freckles on his back caught in the pale moonlight while he pulled his hair out of its tie and scraped his nails through it as it fell around his face.

“Skies…” Junhee murmured softly, the Neverlandian exclamation slipping naturally from his lips. Donghun glanced down at him with a raised eyebrow before slipping into bed with him. Junhee sighed and closed his eyes as their skin met with a burst of magical static.

“What are you ‘skies’-ing about?”

“You.” Junhee nestled closer as Donghun stroked his hair.

Peaceful minutes passed, with nothing but gentle fingers winding through hair and soft breathing.

“What are you thinking about?” Donghun’s voice was a whisper.

“Me?” Junhee looked up, shuffling to lean on his arm as Donghun did the same. He began playing with Donghun’s hand, running his thumb along the long white scar that ran from his elbow to hand from some long-ago fight, and the tiny ones from nicks of blades that littered his fingers. “I was thinking about Chuseok, a few months after you came to live with me.”

“Chuseok?” Donghun echoed. “What made you think of that?”

“I was just thinking about how beautiful you are.” Junhee smiled faintly. “And whenever I think about how beautiful you are, I think about that night because… I’ve never been so starry eyed in my life.”

Donghun grinned. “What do you mean?”

Junhee took his hand, curling his fingers into his like so many times before: completing the puzzle and making them whole. “It was strange, coming up to the holiday. It’s a time for family… and I’d just lost mine.” The final phone call with his parents. Their disappointment, their prejudice, their refusal to accept him for who he was.

He remembered tying bouquets at work, customers talking about their Chuseok plans. He had responded with vagueness when asked what his plans were, and Donghun had picked up on his quietness.

“What’s Chuseok?” he’d asked, brown eyes filled with curiosity, as yet another excitable customer had left with the chime of the door’s bell. Junhee had explained the festival to him, hands still working the string he was tying, trying not to let melancholy into his voice. Donghun had watched him and reached out a soft hand to Junhee’s wrist.

“We’re going to celebrate together, aren’t we? You’re my family.”

Donghun snuggled closer to him now, his thumb rubbing Junhee’s with gentle kneads as he recounted those words. He smiled, and Junhee pushed his hair back.

“You don’t understand how much that meant to me. To hear you call yourself my family.” Junhee met his gold-glass eyes. “I had this… pinpoint moment of just being so in love with you.”

“And we went to see the fireworks.” Donghun leaned his head against Junhee’s, his eyes lost on memories. “Dressed up in all your fancy clothes.”

“Hanbok,” Junhee laughed, but his stomach tightened even at the memory. He stroked Donghun’s cheek. “You want to know the most attractive you’ve ever been to me? That night, when you walked in dressed in hanbok.”

Junhee had pulled out two of his own outfits, one a midnight blue and the other deep plum. He had held one up against Donghun as his phone had rung.

“Here, put this on,” he had said, wandering from the room and into the kitchen to take his call.

He had chatted for five minutes to the customer on the other end, and then hung up with an absent glance over his shoulder. He had frozen, hand paused halfway to lowering to his side, his heart skipping a beat.

“Is this alright..?” Donghun had asked, stepping into the living room draped in deepest blue. He had tugged at the folds of material self-consciously.

“Wow…” Junhee had breathed, unable to find any other words that sufficed. “I… You… _Wow._ ”

Back in the present, Donghun grinned. “You really liked me in that, didn’t you?” His grin took on a naughty taint. “I recall you dragging me to bed when we got home and telling me to keep it on.”

“I recall that too,” Junhee grinned – with flashbacks to absolutely drowning in pleasure lying beneath this prince straight from a Korean fairytale. “But that was it. I loved you so much my heart nearly burst.” He brushed Donghun’s nose with his own. “It was because you became my family. And like a family, you showed up. It was the most beautiful I’ve ever seen you. That’s why I always think about it.”

Donghun looked down, his lashes fluttering dark, his face touched with pink. “That, and the robes.”

“And the robes,” Junhee agreed, nipping his earlobe between his teeth. “But your normal tight clothes are pretty great too.”

They drifted into quiet, and Junhee closed his eyes, lapping up the warmth from Donghun’s magical core. On the brink of sleep, he pulled himself in closer.

“We can’t leave Neverland yet, can we?” It was a sleepy murmur.

“We can’t…” Donghun agreed. “Without a sunset, we can’t travel between worlds… But even if we could, I can’t leave them. I can’t leave my home like this.”

“We’ll find a way to end it.”

And with that, Junhee let go of thoughts of Demons and disaster, and drifted into the softest sleep.

~

Junhee was struggling. He reached desperately over his shoulders, tugging at the fabric of the shirt Byeongkwan had given him. But no matter how much he wriggled, he just couldn’t grab his wing to tug it through the slit in the material.

He was flushed from the effort when Donghun walked into the room.

“Having trouble?” He grinned as Junhee gave up his efforts, still tangled up in his shirt with his wings flattened against his back. “Come here.” With practiced hands, Donghun gently pulled Junhee’s amethyst wings through the holes.

“It’s like I’ve grown an extra arm,” Junhee grumbled. “ _Two_ extra arms, in fact.”

He followed Donghun out into the main room of the house. It was incredible, the way the Lost Boys had lit the place to look like daylight. The same drenching darkness flooded outside, but last night’s warm amber lights had been traded for white daylight orbs around windows and across the ceiling. Junhee smiled at Sehyoon.

“Morning.”

“Morning. You look better than yesterday.” He ran a hand through his silver hair. “Are you both going out to forage?”

“Yup.” Donghun answered for Junhee. “We need to get our strength up before we make any kind of move on the Demons. And we need flowers to do that.”

And so Junhee found himself heading into the woods with Donghun, just like old times. An orb of light bounced overhead like a pet bird, illuminating their path through the thick foliage. Junhee smiled.

“This feels like deja’vu,” he commented, thinking back on those first expeditions into the woods with a then very-closed-off Lost Boy leader. Donghun shot him a smile, a curl of caramel hair falling over his face.

“You were absolutely out of your mind back then.”

Junhee snorted. “I couldn’t help it that your crazy magical flowers got me drunk.” He was struck by a thought. “It’s not happening to me now…”

“It won’t.” Donghun ducked to pluck a dandelion, slipping it into the pouch tied to one hip. “Not now you’ve got some magic in you.”

“Huh. Well that’s handy.” Junhee scratched the back of his neck. “Although I seem to remember it wasn’t just the flowers that had me going out of my mind…”

“Oh?” Donghun’s grin widened as they fell back into step with one another. “You mean you were swooning over how devilishly handsome I am?”

Junhee shrugged with a smirk. “There was a reason I used to always let you walk in front of me.”

The flowers began to thicken, and both boys started to fill their pouches with the petals they needed. It was therapeutic work – a slice of normality after the wild few days. Junhee always found peace in flowers, even at the hardest times.

“Can you come over here?” he beckoned after an hour had passed, straining his eyes in the darkness to identify a red bloom. “I can’t see when the light’s too far away.”

“Why not make your own?”

Junhee stopped, looking up quickly. Donghun was lit by his little orb, one eyebrow raised in gentle question. Junhee hesitated.

“How..?”

“Well,” Donghun said, stepping through the undergrowth to get closer to him. “I need to start teaching you some basics. Not least, how to defend yourself in case… in case we get targeted.” He nodded slowly, his eyes thoughtful. “This is as simple as it gets.”

“Okay.” Junhee watched him, his heart beating a little faster.

“You can feel that well of magic within you, right? Close your eyes, and really listen to it.”

Junhee paused, and then did as he was told. He reached inside himself, to that place where a pool of energy nestled. It felt violet. It sounded warm.

“It might feel like one great swell of energy. But look closer. Feel closer. Tell me what you see.”

Junhee, eyes still closed, focussed in on himself. For a time, the swirling mass within remained one great, glorious glow. And then he started to see deeper. He started to see tendrils of different colours, strands of different textures, like a tapestry woven of different materials.

“There’s… a mixture of things. Like… a bowl of noodles, but all the noodles are different colours.”

He heard Donghun swallow a laugh. “Yeah. Your magical well is made up of different types of magic. The flowers you use will strengthen different parts. Now, can you look for the noodle that manipulates light?”

Junhee frowned, searching his magic. How was he supposed to know?

But he found that he _did_ know. One strand, it wasn’t a different colour, and yet somehow it _was_ a different colour, and he knew exactly what it could be used to do.

“I… think I’ve got it.”

“Okay. Now visualise pulling that thread, drawing it out of the core and into your body – your fingertips, your toes. And then imagine creating a ball of light. Focus really hard.” Junhee pictured it forming: small, white, bright. “Now let the magic pass through the barrier of your skin. Let it go.”

It was the strangest sensation. Like walking through a warm, gentle waterfall, his skin felt gently kissed. As he opened his eyes, he found himself looking at a little ball of light – a little misshapen, but a ball of light nonetheless.

“I did it!” It left Junhee as a gasp of excitement, and Donghun’s eyes creased into an affectionate smile.

“You did. Well done, little one.”

Junhee couldn’t fight the grin from his face. With concentration, he willed the little ball to move, and it zoomed over Donghun’s shoulder. Junhee laughed, incredulous.

“How do you do it so fast?” he asked, still playing with his creation. He thought of all the times he had watched Donghun fly, wield two daggers and cast complex magic all at once.

“Practice.” Donghun stroked Junhee’s hair with affection. “Remember that I’ve been doing this since I was born. With time, you don’t have to pluck out individual strands of magic that way. Or even focus in on your core. It’s just there, inside you and ready, and you’re aware of it. It’s as second-nature to me as breathing.”

Junhee felt a pang of wistfulness. He wouldn’t be here in Neverland long enough to experience how it felt to command magic like that. Above, the orb bobbed with cheerful light and he smiled up at it.

“Do you want to try something else?” Donghun asked, tilting his head.

“What next, teacher?”

“Well… How about trying those wings of yours?”

Junhee stared, eyes going wide. He nodded quickly.

Donghun’s explanation made sense. He talked Junhee through what he was feeling for, how to angle his wings, how to offset his weight and balance. He lifted onto his golden wings as easy as taking a step through the forest and held out his hands to take Junhee’s.

“Your turn.”

Junhee concentrated on his wings. He did precisely as he had been told… Focussed… Felt his feet lift from the forest floor…

… And he pitched forward so hard his hands wrenched straight from Donghun’s, and he hit the forest floor on his front with a thump.

“Ow..!” He rolled up with a wince, spitting out his mouthful of leaves. “I thought you’d got me!”

“Oops.” Donghun’s roguish face blinked down at him from the air, and Junhee rolled his eyes at him, fighting the smile that fought to appear on his face. “Sorry, I’ve never actually had to teach someone how to fly…” Junhee got back to his feet and brushed down his clothes. “Try again. I’ve got you, this time. Properly. I promise.”

Junhee took a deep breath, and regained his focus. Donghun slipped an arm around his waist, so that this time, as he wobbled a few inches off the ground, a solid grip kept him from falling.

“That’s it, little one…” Donghun tilted his chin up for him. “Keep focussed on your centre of gravity…”

And ever so gently, he slid his hands away.

Junhee stared at him, a smile seeping over his face as he found himself hung above the forest floor. Emboldened, he rose a little higher, and lurched to grab Donghun’s hand as he wobbled. But this time, he didn’t fall; like a child taking their first steps, he felt more and more confident the longer he did it.

“Oh my god, I’m flying!” He laughed, incredulous and happy, and Donghun’s grin just about made his entire face split.

“Welcome to my world.” He came closer on his wings to slip his arms around Junhee in the air, and – hung three foot above the flowers below – gave him the sweetest kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed the chapter!
> 
> I'm more grateful than ever for your kind words and kudos. Writing fantasy brings its own unique challenges and this fic is really pushing me - there's so much lore and world-building that each chapter has been taking so much brain-power and note-scribbling to turn out! It's why the chapters are a little further apart than usual with my works - that and work being super busy at the moment - so thank you so much for your patience and for those who have given encouraging words! You are the best.
> 
> And hooo-boy, am I excited about Chapter 6...
> 
> With love,  
> The Indigo Dragonfly
> 
> [Come say hi on Twitter!](https://twitter.com/IndiDragonfly)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byeongkwan and Sehyoon have helped to shed some light on the situation in Neverland. The spirits are actually Demons - evil creatures that flourish in darkness - capable of taking the form of any magical creature they touch, or even possessing their bodies directly. Strengthened by the human blood they stole from Junhee and Donghun's ex-lover, Amiri, they have brought down the eternal night.
> 
> The Lost Boys need to take time to replenish their strength and think of a way to end the Demons for good - and all while Junhee begins his first forays into using his new magic...

“Focus. Let go of stray thoughts that try to intrude. Think of nothing but the barrier around you.”

Junhee tried. He tried to put into practice Donghun’s words, but he couldn’t help feeling the grass under his crossed legs, the twitter of a bird overhead, the splash of a fish in the lake. Thoughts of the lunch he had eaten. The constant buzzing of his magical sense.

His magical barrier wavered, and evaporated.

“Fuck’s sake.” Junhee swiped at the grass angrily, frustration bubbling through his chest. He sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” Donghun’s lips twitched into a half-smile from his place sat opposite him. Clad entirely in tight black clothes with his hair scraped back into a rough knot, he looked like some kind of wise mentor from a fantasy film. “Don’t be so harsh on yourself. You’ve been using magic for less than a week… You’re not going to master it overnight.”

Junhee knew it was true, but he continued to trace grumpy lines in the dirt. “I just want to be good like you.”

“Hate to break it to you, little one, but you’re not going to be as good as me in a few days. I’d be insulted if you were.”

Since Junhee’s first forays into magic last week, Donghun had committed hours a day to his accelerated tuition. They spent every morning sat under the glow of their mutually magicked orbs of daylight, learning how to pull on his magic to create light, summon water, muster a breeze. He had pushed rocks along the path, and tugged them back again, and sent a cushion rising through the air to the highest branches of the trees. And every afternoon they would fly together. Short journeys with trembling wobbles at first, but every day it grew easier and they flew a little father.

But these goddamn shields were a nightmare.

“Come on – you’re getting magically tired, and it’ll just get frustrating.” Donghun bounced up and held out a hand. “Let’s get out your pent-up annoyance with some good old-fashioned fighting.”

Oh – now _these_ were lessons that Junhee relished.

Donghun threw the dagger to him hilt-first; Junhee’s heart lurched as he caught it, even though he knew it was blunted for their safety. It still felt strange, wielding a knife for anything other than chopping vegetables, but Sehyoon’s slim, black-hilted blade was starting to feel more and more comfortable in his grip with every passing day.

Junhee tightened his grip as he lowered his centre of gravity, metal sitting against the callouses that had already taken up residency on his palm.

“Ready?” Donghun asked, spinning one of his dual daggers with the lazy complacency that made Junhee’s stomach clench. Junhee grinned, and answered him by swiping one dagger up hard so that their blades met with a clash.

He’d never put thought into any form of self-defence in his life. Some of his friends had learned martial arts when they’d been kids, but Junhee had never considered it a necessary skill. It was probably why he had been so defenceless that night in the alleyway years ago, with no chance of holding off his muggers. He lived a comfortable life in Seoul working as a florist – and florists didn’t need to be good with a weapon.

So he hadn’t expected it to be _fun._

Each day, when Junhee was frazzled and frustrated from learning magic, he got his lessons in using his knife. Donghun had taught him footwork, how to duck, how to parry, and how to use someone’s strength against them. And now he was a little less clumsy, his slashes and stabs cleaner. Of course, he didn’t want to pay much thought to using the dagger for real… but safe in the confines of these practices, he relished them.

It just annoyed him no end how Donghun didn’t even break a sweat.

He blocked every one of Junhee’s attempts without an ounce of effort – and so did Sehyoon and Byeongkwan, on the days they practiced with him too. Junhee wasn’t weak – floristry was surprisingly manual labour – but Donghun was inhuman. Literally.

Junhee staggered back now, a bead of sweat trickling down his temple. Donghun watched him, a small smile cocking up one side of his mouth, dark eyes already calculating Junhee’s next move. He span the dagger again in one hand, the blade beckoning a lazy challenge, the muscles in his arms swollen and shining from perspiration.

He was infuriatingly good, and infuriatingly _sexy._

“Are you just going to stand there looking at me? Because you’d be dead already. Like, four times over.”

Junhee growled, and swept an arc up at Donghun, throwing his weight behind it. Lit by a desire to impress, he pushed harder than before, moving as fast as he could – slash, parry, slash, duck – and Donghun danced backwards, moving like lightning to hold off Junhee. Junhee grinned, slamming his dagger up hard.

“Is Mr Leader of the Lost Boys actually losing ground to me?” he goaded, delighted at the small distance he had shoved Donghun back.

“Watch it…” Donghun growled, blocking another blow.

“Because right now it looks like I’m beating y-”

It took four seconds.

Disarmed, unbalanced, thrown flat on his back and pinned down immobile, the point of a dagger at his throat.

Donghun growled over the top of him, dark eyes glittering with amusement.

“You were saying?”

Junhee gasped for his breath, wriggling uselessly under Donghun’s practiced restraint. Wide-eyed, his gaze slid to the dagger under his chin, and then back up into Donghun’s smug face. He let out a breath of shocked laughter.

“Uh…” he started, feeling his face warming up. “Is it weird that I found that a bit of a turn-on?”

Donghun stared down at him, eyebrow raised, and then snorted. “Yes, it is. You’re fucked up.” He released Junhee and got to his feet, holding out a hand to pull him up with a grin. “Come on – you don’t get any until you beat me.”

~

It was late at night – or so Junhee presumed, because it was difficult to tell the time in a world where the sun never rose.

He was on a cushion with his back to the wall, knees up, leaning his parchment against his thighs. His quill made a satisfying _scritch_ on the paper as he scribbled notes from his lessons. Magical control… bodily barriers… He tried to note down everything Donghun had told him today about keeping a lid on his own magic.

He brushed his cheek with the feather, pursing his lips. He now understood how easily magic could be released accidentally – if the person wielding it got angry, or upset, or excited. Donghun was teaching him how to keep up his body’s internal barrier, and had given him exercises to strengthen his control. And Junhee wanted to learn fast, because until then, the Lost Boys were trying to keep him away from any situation where he might feel strong emotions…

He glanced at Donghun across the room, lost in thought.

The Lost Boys sat around the table, faces serious. Junhee had long since lost track of their conversation – in-depth discussions of ancient magic, and ways they might be able to kill the Demons for good. If it weren’t for the subject matter, it would almost be a happy scene: watching the three phaeries reunited. The gang back together…

…Almost.

Junhee looked back down at his notes, feeling a pang of grief. Not for the first time, he regretted removing Yuchan’s hand-carved necklace when he slept, knowing that it was still sat where he had left it back on his dresser in Seoul. Ever since he had been gifted it upon leaving Neverland, he had worn it every day to honour their fallen friend.

Junhee sighed, finishing off his notes and getting to his feet with a creak of his knees. He stretched and padded silently to the bedroom, leaving the others to their talks.

It wasn’t long before the door opened, and Donghun appeared with a tired smile. His hair was out of its tie, and his curls had sprung free wildly like a lion’s mane. Junhee returned the smile, letting the little flame he was conjuring die out.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing you cast magic.” Donghun joined him on the bed, crossing his legs delicately. “I swear my heart skips every time.”

Junhee grinned. “It still feels crazy.” He moved his notes onto the floor. “I was just writing up some stuff about control. It feels like I’m getting better at it.”

“Teacher’s pet.” Donghun smiled as he kissed him, and Junhee cupped his cheek, wanting to keep his face close.

“Hun?” Junhee hesitated. “What you said last week about… about needing more control until we can sleep together again..?” He met Donghun’s eyes. “How long will it take..?”

Donghun pursed his lips, searching his face thoughtfully. “It’s hard to say. I mean… Most people are born with magic, and babies have control by the time they’re old enough to really feel any strong emotions. I don’t know how long it takes to _learn_ control. And certainly not how long it takes to have enough control that you can deal with big, intense emotions.” He smoothed back Junhee’s hair. “You know when I had magic and you didn’t, when we slept together it was… kind of intense?”

Oh boy, did he.

“Well, that’s like… one magnet sticking to metal. It’s strong, sure. But now you’ve got magic too, you’re also a magnet. Now imagine two magnets sticking together. They cling together strong.”

“So you’re saying… it’ll be more intense than before?”

“Mh.” Donghun sat back, leaning on the wall. “I’m saying we’ll be volatile as hell now. The stronger the magic, the harder it is to control during… well, any kind of sex.” He gave a wry smile. “My parents must have burned down an entire goddamn forest making me.”

Junhee snorted softly.

He sat for a minute, listening to the magical presences outside, and to the great, trilling energy beside him.

“I want to try.” Junhee met Donghun’s eyes nervously. “Last week I hadn’t even used any magic yet… I’ve learned a lot in the last week. Just… can we try?”

He wasn’t sure why he felt such a yearning for Donghun, but it was there, deep and painful in the pit of his stomach. Maybe the magnet analogy was right… It felt like his magical core and Donghun’s were permanently straining for one another, an invisible cord tugging closer through every minute of the day. Perhaps Donghun felt it too, because the wary expression on his face was at odds to the way he drifted closer, finding Junhee’s mouth with his own.

Junhee breathed in sharply through his nose, wrapping his arms around Donghun’s neck in an instant. He felt like a prisoner fed his first meal after release, furiously satiated and yet desperate for more. His lips tingled as Donghun pulled back to ease Junhee’s shirt over his head, and then lifted his own arms to help Junhee’s removal of his own.

“I can’t-” Junhee tugged at the material, but it stuck on Donghun’s head, his wings still tucked through the slits in the back of the material. He started to laugh, awkwardly yanking on Donghun’s wing to try and free him.

“Skies,” Donghun grinned, arms up and gracelessly tangled. “How many times did you undress me with my wings? Have you really forgotten how?”

“Fuck off,” Junhee laughed, finally pulling Donghun free and leaning in to kiss him through their giggles.

“My love,” Donghun murmured against Junhee’s neck, making the smile slide from Junhee’s face as he closed his eyes. “My perfect boy.”

The magic in Junhee’s core flared. Like tightening a grip, he strengthened his skin’s barrier, and kept control.

They sank down together, Donghun finding that seamless position over Junhee where their bodies fit together, yin and yang. It was perfection, the way they could move together, feel the way they needed to roll and push and yield to create the smooth flow of movement. And all while Donghun’s inner warmth _consumed_ him, pulsing through every cell of Junhee’s skin until he no longer knew where he ended and Donghun began.

Junhee almost cried out when Donghun left his body, creating space to reach down and pull off the rest of their clothes. Junhee opened his eyes, head spinning. His insides clenched as he looked at Donghun, so _fucking_ beautiful in the honey light washing over him from the magical orb above. He felt his insides lurch and his body jerked, and a clap of static shot through the air.

“Sorry!” he gasped, immediately throwing his barrier back up. Donghun looked at him, still, and was slow in resuming his place knelt over Junhee, leaning down to cup his face and kiss him.

_Breathe… Steady… Keep control…_

Junhee kept his eyes closed, focussed on his breathing, and tried not to lose himself on the kisses that trailed down his chest and stomach. Donghun’s lips left prints of tingles that sent vibrations across his skin.

_Breathe… Breathe…_

Donghun’s mouth slipped wet and warm around his length, and Junhee’s hips bucked violently.

The smash was deafening.

Junhee and Donghun jerked up to sitting, both with a gasp.

Shards of glass littered the dresser and floor where a vase had, quite literally, exploded. Around them, tendrils of crackling blue light flickered and dissipated.

“I-” Junhee trailed off, staring at the carnage. “I’m so sorry!”

“It’s okay, little one,” Donghun soothed, touching his leg. With barely a flick of a wrist, unseen magic swept through the mess and tidied the shards into a clay bowl. “It’s not your fault.”

“I-”

Junhee stopped. A lump rose in his throat, sudden and hard, before he even knew what was causing it. Donghun got up to check the floor for any leftover glass, and Junhee watched him, struggling to swallow, and pulled the blanket protectively around his skin.

“Well, we can try again after a bit more practice.” Donghun’s voice was airy and unconcerned, but Junhee watched him, mouth clamped shut. “You’ll get there.” He sat back down on the bed, smiling as he pulled on a pair of soft cotton pants to sleep in. “Probably for the best we leave it a little longer before we touch each other… And before you touch yourself either, for that matter.”

Junhee’s eyes stung and he sank further into his blanket, cheeks on fire. The magical core inside him still strained hopelessly for Donghun’s, anguished and neglected.

“So, I can’t even jerk off in case I blow something up,” he commented, his voice bitter. “Great.”

“Hey.” Donghun shifted closer, a quizzical smile on his face. “It won’t be for long, it-”

He trailed off as Junhee’s eyes welled up and spilled.

“I’m sorry.” Junhee put his hands to his eyes, trying to push the tears back in – but they leaked down his face nonetheless. “It’s just… it’s just so frustrating.”

“I know, little one…” Donghun’s voice was uncertain. “But I’ll… I’ll wait with you. If you can’t touch yourself, I won’t touch myself either, I’ll wait too…”

Junhee looked up, laughing through his tears. “I’m not crying about not getting laid…” he managed, smiling and crying at the same time. “I’m just… It’s just…” He took a shuddering breath, trying to find words to explain the tug in his stomach and the yearning and the love and the confusion. “It’s what I’m feeling… It’s really deep, and… It’s all just a bit overwhelming.”

His smile slid away as he blinked two more tears down his cheeks.

“Hey…” Donghun reached for his hand, holding his fingers tight. “I know. I… I might have control but I’m also getting used to the way our magic… pulls towards one another. I can only imagine how much this is for you to adapt to.”

“Yeah… It’s just… a lot.” He closed his eyes against the hug Donghun wrapped around him. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” A gentle kiss was planted on top of his head. “Tomorrow, I’ll start teaching you how to sing to the flowers.” He pulled back, wiping a tear from Junhee’s chin. “It helps them grow, but it’s also really meditative. It’s one of the ways I learned to contain the power inside myself when I was younger and getting to grips with my own strength.”

Junhee nodded, feeling all kinds of fatigued. He relented to Donghun pulling him down into a cuddle, coiling against him beneath the blanket as he extinguished their magical light.

~

A thousand stars littered the skies.

Junhee took a deep breath, lay on his back.

He was peaceful. No demons threatened. He simply listened to the wind in the trees, and the gentle lapping of waves.

Ah! The beach. He hadn’t been here for a while.

A huge ship was moored out to sea. _The Aurora?_ Yes, it must be. He smiled. How nice it would be to see Hongjoong and the others again.

He lay on his back, nestled in the softest grass. God, it really _was_ soft. Like he could feel every blade tickling his skin.

Just like he could see every shade of blue in the night sky.

Just like he could smell every honeysuckle and tulip and foxglove.

Just like he could hear the splash of ocean fish and chirp of nocturnal birds.

So vivid.

He lay peacefully, content not to move, until footsteps crunched through the sand.

He looked up, and jolted.

“What are you doing here?”

Kasper approached on the sand, his silver wings and hair catching the starlight. Junhee’s heart skipped in fear, and he scrabbled back, kicking up sand.

But Kasper didn’t make a move to attack him.

He was covered in blood.

Junhee stared. His gait was heavy with a limp, his clothes tattered and his expression wretched. A great gash in one wing horrified Junhee – he could only imagine the pain.

“Help me,” Kasper croaked, his eyes locking with Junhee’s. “Please, help me!”

Junhee jolted awake.

The room was dark and quiet, and his eyes darted around as the dream faded. It had felt so real, so tangible…

“It’s okay, little one…” Donghun’s murmur was sleepy, and Junhee glanced down at his tired pout before curling back in his arms, willing the night’s images away.

~

Junhee’s dream stayed in the back of his mind all day, like a monster watching over his shoulder. He felt on edge, unable to shake the feeling of discomfort, his mind going back time and time again to Kasper’s bloodied form.

But there was something that he could always count on to bring him peace: the ocean.

Each of the four boys were illuminated by a gentle pearly orb, bobbing around them as they waded ankle-deep through the lapping waves. They were hunting for a long, stringy sea plant that the Lost Boys used for the fortification spells around their wooden house, and since Byeongkwan and Sehyoon had been gone for some time, the magic could use some bolstering.

Junhee just relished being on the seafront. Since he’d been a little boy in Jeolla-do, he had found tranquillity in the sea; letting his gaze drift far off to the horizon felt like letting go of his troubles. The cool water stroked at his legs, and he got lost in plucking out weeds to add to his growing bundle.

He didn’t notice Donghun had stopped until he bumped straight into his back.

“Hey! What’s-”

Junhee stopped short. Donghun was frozen still, like an animal listening to the wind. His eyes were unfocussed.

“Do you feel that?”

Junhee, Byeongkwan and Sehyoon exchanged glances.

Donghun didn’t wait for an answer. His daggers were in his hands in an instant, sharp eyes fixed on the beach.

He was about four seconds ahead of them.

At first, Junhee thought their lights were simply casting long shadows. But the shadows began to contort, shift, and then rise up out of the sand altogether. Dozens of them – black, swirling, smoky masses that opened their hideous maws in a pitch-black scream.

“Wraiths!” Donghun immediately lowered his centre of gravity, swinging one dagger at a creature that spiralled towards him, mouth agape. “Heat - they hate it, use it!”

Byeongkwan and Sehyoon were already at his side. They summoned flames within seconds, sending spiralling funnels of fire into the writhing mass of wraiths. The screams were blood-curdling.

“What are wraiths doing out here?!” Byeongkwan yelled, shooting flames with a slash of one arm and stabbing his knife up into one wraith’s mouth. “What happened to living in the marshes and only coming out at night!”

“The darkness… Must be making them travel!” Donghun took out three wraiths at once, and they were replaced by eight more.

And in it all, Junhee stared, frozen to the spot.

Suddenly, every single lesson Donghun had taught him slipped from his head. He stared, his fingers frozen half-way to his dagger, at the wraith swirling towards him with a scream. He knew nothing. No way to stop it. All he felt was deep, terrible fear…

“ _Junhee!_ ”

The wraith slammed into a shield with an eruption of silver sparks. Junhee stared, helpless, as the wraiths hit again and again against the bubble he found himself inside of. He cast a look at Donghun; he held up Junhee’s shield, all while jumping onto his wings, wielding two blades and sending fire sizzling through the air.

“There’s too many!” It was Sehyoon, and fear sounded jarring in Sehyoon’s gentle voice.

The Lost Boys were back-to-back. The wraiths _kept coming_ , a hundred or more dark shapes barrelling through the air around them. Junhee stumbled towards them, afraid, the magical core inside him yanking him towards Donghun in fear, in desperation-

Light began to swell.

It was blinding. Amber, balmy and _blinding_. All four boys threw their arms up to cover their faces. It was like the world had been dipped in honey warmth, the closest thing to a sunrise Neverland had seen in a long time.

The wraiths shrieked bloody murder. Those near the light’s source incinerated on the spot, the others scattering and fleeing into the darkness. Junhee squinted, his eyes watering, as the final creatures were banished into the shadows.

Gradually, the light began to shrink.

It grew smaller, and smaller, until it began to take on a form. Still blinding, but it became the size and shape of a person, gradually dimming, gradually softening into features.

Still shimmering, still translucent, still glowing. But material enough for Junhee to make out a pair of brown eyes, and scarlet wings, and a shock of red hair. And a brilliant, boyish smile.

Donghun’s daggers fell to the sand.

“It can’t be…” he breathed.

He took a step closer.

“Yuchan..?”

“Sorry to show up unannounced.” Yuchan grinned, pushing back his hair. Sparks of light flickered around his face, his body ever-so-faintly see-through. “It’s been a while.”

A choked noise escaped Donghun’s throat. He stumbled forward, faltering to a stop in front of their fallen brother. He raised a trembling hand, and for a second, Junhee thought his touch would pass right through the youngest phaerie.

He pulled Yuchan into a desperate hug, real and solid as any.

And then Sehyoon and Byeongkwan were there, wrapping their arms around them both. Donghun’s sobs were rough and broken, and Yuchan shushed him quietly, smiling at the reunion. He glanced up, and met Junhee’s eyes with a grin. Like he’d done nothing more than step out for a walk in the woods.

“How… How are you… Is it really you?” Donghun pulled back, holding Yuchan’s shimmering form by his shoulders. “But you’re dead… How…”

“Well, we have a lot to tell you about.”

“We..?”

Yuchan hesitated, searching Donghun’s face. “Yeah. I had a little help.”

Yuchan pulled back from his old friends, and glanced back over his shoulder. Only then did Junhee notice a second form – glowing and transient, like Yuchan – walking cautiously towards the boys. His dark hair was swept back in a ponytail, dark ink markings on his thick arms. His expression was so full of longing, and sorrow, and trepidation, and grief, and… something else.

Junhee’s eyes snapped to Donghun as he let out a noise.

For a moment, Donghun and the newcomer stood, staring at one another. Donghun took one faltering step forward. Then another. He stopped in front of the boy, eyes locked on his.

And then he shattered, breaking into tears as the boy pulled him in tight.

“Amiri…” Donghun cried, and Junhee’s world flipped violently.

Amiri put a gentle hand to Donghun’s hair, hushing his heartbroken sobs.

“My love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, how excited I was to get to the return of Yuchan! And, y’know, Donghun’s ex-lover...
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Sorry for the slight delay – I was unwell for a while and had to take a few days to recuperate! This story may be less frequently updated than my normal 3-4 day turnarounds, due to the fact fantasy takes a lot more planning, drafting and editing, and because work is very busy for me! I’ll work hard to turn around chapters every 7-10 days. I hope this is okay and you want to stick with the story nonetheless!
> 
> As always, thank you so, so much for reading, and for your kind comments and kudos!
> 
> P.S. Anyone playing ‘Fic Cliché Bingo’ can take a shot for “he couldn’t tell where his body ended and xxx’s began”. 
> 
> With love,  
> The Indigo Dragonfly
> 
> [Come say hi on Twitter!](https://twitter.com/IndiDragonfly)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junhee is learning to harness his magical abilities, along with his daily lessons in using a dagger with the Lost Boys. Full control takes time, though, and intense emotions are still causing accidents.
> 
> But there's more pressing concerns at hand. Standing in the wake of a wraith attack, Junhee can do nothing but stare on in shock as it appears Yuchan and Amiri have returned from the dead...

The waves were lapping at Junhee’s feet, but it felt like they were washing against his body; he could hear their rush in his ears.

It was like he was oddly disconnected, watching the scene from above. Firstly, the adrenaline from the wraith attack still coursed in his body, the panic of freezing and being unable to unsheathe his dagger nor even attempt a shield refusing to let his heartbeat slow to resting. Then came the shock of seeing Yuchan. Yes, his form was shimmering and translucent, but it was _him_ , his voice, his smile, his eyes that caught the magical lights hung overhead on the beach. But neither of those things held Junhee’s attention.

Donghun’s shoulders shook with silent sobs as Amiri held him.

He couldn’t explain the feeling in his chest.

Junhee had never been a jealous man. A little insecure – sure, because what young man had grown up and not had moments of self-doubt? But jealousy wasn’t in his nature. Nevertheless, that simple hold, the way Amiri rested his cheek against Donghun’s head… It made every hair stand up on Junhee’s body and every muscle freeze in resistance. The boy Donghun had loved so much, back from the dead, back in Neverland, back _here_ , with him…

…And Junhee would be damned before he could claim they didn’t look perfect, holding each other like that.

Amiri was taller than Donghun by a few inches, and considerably broader. Tattoos marked every inch of the skin of his upper and lower arms, and wrapped around Donghun, they made the phaerie look delicate.

“But you’re dead…” The sob broke out of Donghun high and broken, his entire frame quivering as he pulled back to look into Amiri’s face. “How are you here..?”

“We’re Sprites, Hun.” It was Yuchan who spoke, looking between Donghun and Amiri with uncertainty. Junhee stole a look at Sehyoon and Byeongkwan; the colour had drained from their faces in shock – this word clearly meant something to them. “But it’s okay! We’re fine. We’re just really happy to find you…”

Amiri’s dark eyes hadn’t left Donghun, and they brimmed with so much complex emotion that Junhee barely dared to look.

“It’s okay, _anahera,_ it’s okay…”

Donghun choked, tears soaking his face. “It’s not okay, it’s not… You’re dead… I killed you.”

“Donghun…” Amiri let him slide from his arms, watching him cry into his hands. “ _Anahera_ , I know this is a lot to take in… But it’s all okay. Everything that happened, it’s okay, and I’m here with you-”

“ _IT’S NOT OKAY_!”

Everyone went still.

Junhee barely dared to breathe. The very air went cold; the light Donghun’s magic was conjuring into existence above them flashed erratically.

“I killed you!” Donghun turned his palms upwards, hands trembling, face broken with his tears. “The last time I saw you I was… I was killing you..!” He shook his head wildly. “Amiri, I looked into your eyes as you… As you…”

“My love, I understand…” Amiri’s voice was gentle. “But I know why you did what you did. I don’t blame you.”

“Why don’t you!” Donghun cried. “I blame myself! I did it!” He stepped back, faltering. “Why did you make me have to do it, Amiri? You betrayed us! You betrayed us, how _could_ you, after we gave you _everything_ , after _I gave you everything!_ ”

Donghun’s eyes bored into Amiri’s as he racked with sobs.

“I gave you my whole heart, and you turned on us, and you joined those evil _fucking_ pirates and tried to help them _kill me_ … And then you had to go and hold a knife to Sehyoon didn’t you?! You had to give me no choice but to save him by killing you…” He wept helplessly. “I didn’t want to do it, even after everything, even though you wanted me dead I still never wanted to hurt you…”

“Donghun…”

“But I killed you! I had to… and I… I had to carry on being the leader of the Lost Boys. I had to protect the others. I had to sing to the flowers. I had to do it all. And I had to tell myself that what happened on that _fucking_ ship was nothing but _inevitable_ , because we’d lost you to darkness long before I killed you… Why did you have to turn against us… Why…”

Donghun sank to his knees on the sand.

Junhee had never in his life wanted to go to him more. And he knew it was the one time he had to stay away.

It was Yuchan who walked up him on quiet feet. Hesitating, he crouched next to the boy he’d always called ‘brother’.

“Hun…”

Donghun looked up, agony wrought on his face. “You.! Your blood’s on my hands too! If I’d never run to try and save the tulips, you’d never have been there in the fires, you’d never have been near that pirate… You died protecting _me_ …”

“And to save you, I’d do it a hundred times over.”

Donghun searched him, and then as Yuchan opened his arms, folded against him, broken.

For a long time, it was quiet, except for Donghun’s crying. Yuchan stroked his hair, his fingers shimmering at their edges.

After a minute or an hour – who knew – Amiri slowly approached them both. Yuchan looked up at him, giving a small nod. He withdrew, leaving Amiri to take his place.

“You’re a traitor.” They were small, feeble words, laced with sorrow and lacking conviction. Amiri knelt in the sand, watching Donghun carefully.

“Hun?” Yuchan spoke slowly and delicately, like he was afraid the weight of his words might shatter Donghun completely. “We’ll explain everything properly later but… there’s something you need to know.” He swallowed, glancing at Sehyoon and Byeongkwan. “You know that the Ateez pirates were actually the mirrored form of eight Demons, don’t you? But… there weren’t originally eight Demons. There were nine.”

Nine.

Nine Demons?

Junhee looked from Yuchan, to Sehyoon, to Byeongkwan. And finally, he looked at Amiri, as realisation rendered him numb.

“Nine..?” Donghun echoed, staring into Amiri’s face.

“I was possessed by a Demon,” Amiri said.

Such simple words, but they changed _everything._

“You… were…”

“Donghun.” Amiri’s tone grew thick with emotion. “The reason I changed, the reason I seemed to turn on you… was because of a Demon inside me. They usually take on the form of creatures, like a mirror image, but this one took a hold of me, used my body as a host… They took control of me to gain access to my blood, but then they used me to try and bait you and the boys into where they could hurt you.” Amiri shook his head. “I would never have betrayed any of you. But least of all _you_.”

A slow look of understanding crossed Donghun’s face, until it gave way to horror.

“Then you… You never turned against us..? It was just the… Demon?” His breathing got faster. “No, _no_ , that means I killed you when you were _innocent_ , if we’d known, we could have got it out of you…”

“Donghun, by killing me, you killed a Demon that night – and no matter what happened, you had to save Sehyoon.” Amiri smiled gently, so warm and tender that Junhee felt like he was intruding on an intimate moment. “It was me or him, and I was already lost.”

“But… I… I… I could have saved you…”

Tears ran down Donghun’s cheeks. From shock, to guilt, to anger, and now to this: a raw, breathless sorrow. 

“What you did was the right thing.” Amiri wound his fingers through Donghun’s. “I wasn’t myself. I’d have killed Sehyoon, and helped the Demons kill all of you. You did what you had to do.”

Through his tears, Donghun watched Amiri for a long time. He seemed to be hunting for something in his face: truth, perhaps. Reassurance that this really was his lost sweetheart, telling him that after years of believing he had turned against them, he had never stopped loving him.

“Say something, _Anahera_.” Amiri pulled Donghun closer in the sand and smiled sadly. “I’ve never seen you lost for words before…”

“I just… I never… I never got to _grieve_ you.” Donghun’s voice broke. “I turned my focus on safety and protecting Neverland and the other boys. We wrote you off as someone who had stabbed us in the back. Life moved on. But I never grieved for losing you.” Donghun’s tears began afresh. “There was so much I never got to tell you… You were gone too soon and so much happened and _you weren’t there_ …” He began to sob, and Amiri pulled him close.

“I’m here now.” He stroked Donghun’s curls gently. “I’m here now.”

A steady hand wrapped around Junhee’s. He jolted.

“They need time alone.” Byeongkwan’s voice was nothing but a statement; it carried no emotion, but his pale face belied his own shock. Yuchan and Sehyoon drew up next to them. “They’ll know where to find us.”

Junhee was tugged into motion, taking faltering steps after Byeongkwan and the others as he was led uphill and back towards the house. He glanced back over his shoulder at Donghun and Amiri, his heart thudding.

They knelt together on the shoreline, casting a blended shadow under Donghun’s amber light.

~

When Junhee had first come to Neverland, it had been Yuchan’s big smiles and cheerful character that had put him most at ease. And here he was, precisely the same, as though he’d never been gone a day.

Junhee sat on a cushion at the low table, watching. Yuchan was sat on the counter in the galley kitchen, swinging his legs while he talked. He was excitable and happy, a _woah, isn’t it cool that I’m back from the dead_ rather than a _isn’t it sad that I died three years ago._

Byeongkwan – as Byeongkwan was prone to doing – had insisted on getting together some food for them to sit and talk over. It was a quick meal: a type of rich bread and a salad of a hundred different coloured leaves. He plated up quickly and joined Sehyoon and Junhee at the low table, Yuchan scurrying after him to take up his own seat.

“Uh…” Byeongkwan began, throwing a glance at Yuchan. “Do you still eat?”

“Nope!” Yuchan shook his head, red hair tickling his ears. “Haven’t had to eat since I died.”

Junhee watched him, watched the way his skin glittered in and out of translucence, the way his wings shone like scarlet paint watered down. Yuchan sensed his curious eyes, because he glanced at him with a warm smile.

“Yuchan… I hope you don’t mind me asking…” Junhee began. “You said… You’re a Sprite?”

“Yeah.” Yuchan pushed back his hair, watching the others eat. “So… When most creatures die, they just… die. Poof! Gone. But on really rare occasions, there’s like… a faltering in the passage between the magical realm and the beyond. When a soul clings on so tightly to life that they get sort of… stuck. One foot in life, one foot in death. And they become a Sprite.”

“Those with unfinished business…” Byeongkwan added.

“They become trapped between planes of existence until they find peace,” Sehyoon concluded.

“Exactly.” Yuchan gave a bright smile. “So like, I _am_ dead. Super dead! But I’ve not passed on yet.”

Junhee blinked dumbly. “So you… you haven’t left this world yet?”

“I have. Sort of.” Yuchan re-crossed his legs and shuffled his wings. “I’ve seen the other side.” His smile faltered. “When I woke up like this, I was in a place… A place that isn’t on this world. I walked for a really long time. I was just… wandering, trying to find my way back.” He hesitated, his eyes unfocussed, lost on some memory of place Junhee couldn’t begin to fathom. “But anyway! Who did I end up finding but Amiri! And together we found our way back to you. And just in time, because those wraiths were kicking your asses…”

Byeongkwan raised an eyebrow and cuffed Yuchan over the back of the head. “Watch it, you little punk.”

“Whatcha going to do… Kill me?”

Junhee watched them bicker like old times. That glow Yuchan had always brought to the room, it still burned strong, even in whatever purgatory he was in. Everything felt complete, felt _whole_.

But the happiness was a thin veneer. Beneath it, Junhee was aching.

His magical core was tugging, throbbing like an abscessed tooth. Its invisible hands strained out to reach its other half, desperate to be completed. But that other half was down on the seafront, in the arms of another man. Junhee swallowed down the bite of nausea that threatened to overwhelm him.

“So Amiri…” Byeongkwan started, as though he could somehow tell the subject ever-present in Junhee’s mind. “He… really never betrayed us?”

“No.” Yuchan sighed, propping his chin in his hands. “When I saw him out there, I was really mad at first. A bit like Hun. But he explained everything to me, and it all started to make sense. You know, he was our _family_. He was with us for years, and him and Hun were…” He caught himself with a glance at Junhee, but not before it had made Junhee’s insides constrict. “I know we thought he was after power but… I don’t know. Even though I believed it, I still couldn’t equate that to gentle, thoughtful Amiri. Knowing that he was possessed sorta made it all click into place.”

“It really does,” Byeongkwan murmured thoughtfully. “So they just wanted his blood?”

“Yeah. They thought by controlling him, they could just get him captive and drain him at intervals.” Yuchan shuddered. “Which… they did. But they realised they could do so much more – slowly convince us of his betrayal, lure us into arguing and becoming rash in our retaliation. Which… we did.”

The three Lost Boys looked away, uncomfortable.

“Poor Hun…” Sehyoon said quietly. “It was one thing for him to live with killing Amiri when we thought he was evil and out to kill us. I can only imagine how he feels knowing that Amiri was innocent all this time…”

“He still had to do it though.” Byeongkwan’s voice was oddly defensive. “What he said was right – it sounds savage, but he was already lost to us. If Hun didn’t kill him…” He swallowed hard.

“But if he hadn’t, maybe there would have been a way to purge the Demon – just like the Dokkebi purged Donghun.”

“He was about to kill you, Sehyoon.” Byeongkwan’s voice was sharp. “He had to save you. We… couldn’t have lost you.”

A ghost of a smile touched Sehyoon’s face, and he reached to squeeze Byeongkwan’s hand.

The conversation turned back into cheerful patter, the friends filling each other in on the past three years: defeating the pirates, Donghun’s move to Junhee’s world, the Demons returning and their eternal night.

But Junhee was quiet, barely speaking if not for the questions he was asked. His thoughts were still out at that beach. What was happening? Was Donghun okay? What was Amiri saying to him? _Gentle, thoughtful Amiri…_ Junhee looked down at his hands as he replayed Yuchan’s words. _He was our family. He was with us for years, and him and Hun were…_

The light Junhee was casting over the table flared with sudden static.

“Sorry!” he said quickly as the others glanced up. “Still having some hiccups with my magic.”

He forced his focus on the plate of food he had hardly touched.

They sat around for a long time after the food was finished. Yuchan wanted to know everything – including the gory details of his own death – and Byeongkwan and Sehyoon were more than happy to oblige. They were telling him about the new flower they had discovered some time ago when the door handle clicked.

Amiri smiled at them quickly as he let himself in, holding the door for Donghun. Junhee immediately looked to search his face. It was a relief to see that he was no longer crying, though his eyes were red and puffy. Lip bitten, he glanced at Junhee and their eyes met. Junhee’s heart skipped.

_My other half… My other half, please come and sit close to me._

The others made room around the table, and Amiri and Donghun knelt in the space.

“Sorry for…” Donghun started, his voice husky and thick, and Byeongkwan quickly spoke over him.

“None of that. Eat.” He pushed a plate at Donghun, who reluctantly began to pick at some bread.

“Hun… have you even given yourself _one_ haircut since I died?” Yuchan’s quip broke the silence, and teased a dark flicker of a smile out of Donghun. Junhee could see the intense love in his gold-flecked eyes as he looked at Yuchan.

“I see death hasn’t made you any less of a brat.”

“I’ve had to deal with this by myself for _so long_.” Junhee glanced at Amiri, whose dark eyes twinkled as he teased. “You have no idea what a relief it is to have other company.”

“Oh screw yourself, you ghoul!”

The boys all tittered, but Amiri glanced at Junhee and caught his furtive watching.

“You must be Junhee.” Amiri’s voice was deep and melodic, in an accent Junhee couldn’t quite place. His handsome face was full of masculine angles. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“You too,” Junhee stuttered, feeling uncomfortable.

“You’re… South Korean?”

Junhee blinked, and then nodded. It felt extremely alien to talk about home in Neverland. After all, they were the only humans here.

“Yeah. I’m from Seoul.” Junhee was aware of Donghun watching him. “You’re…” He trailed off, realising he had no idea where Amiri was from. Amiri? What language was that name from?

“Maori.” Amiri smiled easily, dimples appearing in his cheeks. “From New Zealand.”

“But you… speak Korean?”

Amiri laughed gently; it sounded like soft waves in the sun. “You don’t know? The magic in Neverland acts as a neutraliser of language. It doesn’t matter what language you speak, we all hear the same one.” He grinned. “I long gave up trying to work out how that one worked.”

Junhee looked down as the others teased Amiri for his lack of knowledge, his cheeks warming. He’d never known that, and it acutely pressed home that Amiri knew more about this place than he did. He’d lived here for years before his death… And now Junhee was an outsider again.

“We hear some Maori words though, don’t we?” Yuchan asked breezily. “You use that one, it starts with an ‘a’?”

“ _Anahera_?”

“Yeah. What’s it mean?”

Amiri and Donghun glanced at one another, and Donghun looked down at his food. Amiri replied. “It means ‘angel’.”

Junhee tried to school his face. He didn’t want to show how that made him feel.

The chatter continued, and Junhee sat through it as long as he could. Eventually, he offered to clear the plates, then waited for a break in conversation.

“I’m going to head to bed,” he said. “You’ve all got a lot of catching up to do.”

He nodded as the others bid him goodnight, keeping his eyes averted from Donghun’s. He was too scared of what he’d find echoed in his face.

Junhee got changed into night clothes and climbed into bed, wrapping the covers up over his head. He had gone out this morning to get seaweed, not to find two people who they thought had died years ago. His mind was still wrapping around it all.

Seeing Yuchan was overwhelming. He practically drowned in unfathomable relief to see him – he may have died, but he was… happy? He didn’t blame anyone, he didn’t even seem to have regrets. A weight Junhee didn’t even know he had been carrying dissolved. Donghun could stop blaming himself. The boys could stop grieving.

Amiri was a whole lot more conflicting.

Junhee was glad he too had found some form of peace. Of course he was – he wasn’t a monster, and he would never wish anything but happiness for any soul, living or dead. And he was relieved for Donghun, who no longer had to live with that insidious remorse of having been betrayed by a lover.

But he couldn’t help it. Seeing Amiri here, with Donghun, upset him to the core. The easy way Donghun had fallen into his arms. The way they exchanged glances, and caught onto one another’s sentences, even after all this time. The way the other Lost Boys spoke as though Amiri was part of their family, when they had _never_ used that term about Junhee.

_Anahera._

The bedroom door clicked. Junhee tugged down the duvet, and smiled quickly as he found Yuchan hanging questioningly in the doorway.

“Hey, Channie… Come in.”

Yuchan padded over, perching on Junhee’s bed as he sat up. And then he hugged Junhee breathlessly tight.

“Ah! What-” Junhee said in surprise, and then wrapped his arms around Yuchan’s glowing form in response. “Yuchan?”

“I’ve really missed you.” Yuchan pulled away. “You said us five had a lot of catching up to do like I didn’t miss you just as much.”

Junhee swallowed, not trusting his voice.

“I’ve missed you so much too,” he said when he could find his words again. “I’m just… I’m really happy that you’re happy, you know?”

“I am.” Yuchan smiled. “Don’t you worry about me.” He stood up, pushing a hand through his hair. “I’ll let you sleep. I just wanted to tell you.”

Junhee watched him leave, eyes soft. As the door shut, he lay back down, trying to focus on this happy relief of seeing Yuchan again. As he closed his eyes, he thought about what he’d been told about Sprites and death, until existentialism made his head spin. He decided not to dwell on it, and willed sleep to come in its place.

~

Junhee’s sleep was light and restless, so when the door creaked quietly late into the night, he woke without stirring. Quiet footsteps entered the room and clothes rustled. Junhee kept his eyes shut and his back turned as someone slipped silently into bed beside him.

Donghun tucked one arm around him from behind.

“Junhee?” His voice was a little whisper, and Junhee’s heart skipped with sad confusion. “Little one, are you awake?”

Junhee wasn’t sure why his throat constricted and his closed eyes stung, but it stopped him choosing to reply. Instead, he remained as though asleep.

Donghun stayed still, maybe watching him for a moment longer. Eventually, he lay down behind Junhee, pressing a gentle kiss into his shoulder.

Junhee didn’t stir, but a tear trickled from between his lashes and dripped onto the pillow.

~

It was still strange to wake up when there was no rising sun.

Junhee yawned, eyes fluttering open to the darkness. Next to him, Donghun was fast asleep, his usual sleepy pout on his face as he dreamed. Junhee’s heart tugged as memories of the day before returned. He tucked back a curl of Donghun’s wild hair, a sinking unhappiness settling back over him. Without waking Donghun, he climbed out of bed.

Junhee found that he was the first to wake. He moved silently around the kitchen, drinking a sweetened blend of petals to help strengthen his magical supply. Already, he was beginning to be able to tell which parts of his core were depleted, and needed topping up.

He was restless, and he needed some time and space to think. Grabbing his boots, he tugged them on, before scrawling a note to the others. _Up early, gone foraging. Will be back soon._

Junhee closed the front door quietly and willed his magical light into existence. It bobbed cheerfully.

“Morning, little friend,” he said, and headed to the woods, hands in pockets.

He walked with the purpose of finding flowers, but he didn’t really have a plan of what he was looking for. Very quickly, his mind turned to replaying conversations from yesterday. Over and over again, he saw Donghun stumbling forward into Amiri’s arms, the way their heads had rested together, the way Amiri’s fingers had looked carding through his hair.

Junhee walked faster, tripping over roots.

He tried to push the thoughts away, but they kept assaulting him: Amiri’s handsome smile, and his thick tattooed arms, wrapped around Donghun’s little waist. That’s how they’d once been, wasn’t it? Junhee’s breathing grew faster. Like _family_. Like a pair bonded for life, is that what that meant? Only torn apart by Amiri’s betrayal and his death, only _neither_ of those things still stood? He was here, albeit as a Sprite, but still here enough to touch Donghun and talk with him and trade knowing glances.

Junhee stumbled hard as a whip of magic left his core and lashed wind through the air. He gasped, trying to push on.

He _knew_ Donghun loved him. He knew that without a shadow of a doubt. But he had loved Amiri deeply too – and what if he was asked to choose between them?

What if, instead of his life with Junhee, trapped in a world where he didn’t belong, a place where he had to sacrifice his wings and magic, he chose to be free, and reunited with Amiri?

An image flashed across Junhee’s mind: Donghun’s back arched, pulled in tight to Amiri, his full lips pressed against Amiri’s, those hands in his wild hair.

Magic ripped from Junhee’s body in a crescendo.

He fell to hands and knees with a cry as the force of his own magic threw him forward. He put up his hands to either side of his head as the wrench came again and again. Scattered bangs exploded around him, the barrier keeping his magic inside dissolving to nothing.

“No, no, no…” Junhee cried, tears breaking free down his face. “Don’t leave me…”

A brilliant plume of flame engulfed one of the bushes nearby.

He would leave. He would choose Amiri, choose his first and longest love. Junhee would go back home alone. He would be trapped, no way of reaching Neverland again. He would be alone, so alone, so _empty_ without Donghun-

Fire started to burst like fireworks around him. He tore in his breath, heard it echoing in his own skull as he cast around desperately, dizzy and disconnected. He fought to pull his control but his magic just kept snapping and snapping and it had to go somewhere and-

Alone. Alone without him. What then? Pretend none of this had ever happened? Continue his life as a florist without him? No, no, he would rather _die_ , he would rather-

Flames ripped up the trunk of a tree.

Junhee covered his head, sobbing against the ground.

_Donghun’s not here to save you now. He’s not coming this time. You’re alone, you’re alone, you’re alone._

Heat began to scorch against him. He still didn’t open his eyes. He just cried, his loss of control spiralling and spiralling-

“ _Junhee!_ ”

The terrified voice reached him, and so did the running footsteps. But Junhee didn’t look up. He couldn’t look up.

“Junhee!” The owner of the voice fell down next to him, pulling up his head. Junhee gasped, looking up into Sehyoon’s face. The silver-haired phaerie searched him, and then – one hand still clutching Junhee’s – turned his attention to wild fires around them. From nowhere, icy waves of water spun from the air and began to douse the flames.

Gradually, under Sehyoon’s conjured water, the fires died down.

Junhee still choked for air. Still, magic slipped through his skin’s barrier as he trembled.

“Junhee. Listen to me. It’s okay. Your magic needs somewhere to go, doesn’t it?” Sehyoon held his face. “Can you try and copy me?”

Sehyoon sat back, holding his fingers. With the other hand, he created a clear sphere in the air.

Trembling, Junhee summoned a misshapen imitation.

“That’s perfect. Now, let your magic slip into it. Let it do what it wants. If it wants to make fires, let it make fires.”

Bursts of erratic flame began to pop inside of Sehyoon’s bubble, and Junhee watched with desperate eyes. With a shuddering breath, he directed the chaos inside him into that bubble – he didn’t try to shape it, he didn’t try to control it, the only parameter was that it stayed _inside_.

Wild flames burned and burned inside Junhee’s bubble.

Heat and fire and sparks and _sadness and sorrow and fear and please don’t leave me-_

And eventually, slowly, the fireworks subdued.

Junhee slumped forward to lean on his hands, retching as his shaking body reached still for a magical source that was all but completely depleted. Sehyoon pulled a water skin from his belt and handed it to him silently.

“Are you okay?”

Junhee looked up, tears still caught in the corners of his eyes. Sehyoon watched him, his usual gentle expression on his face. And Junhee could tell from his eyes: he knew exactly what had happened.

“I couldn’t control it…” Junhee croaked, hoarse.

“I know. These bubbles are a really good way of letting out your magic safely.” Sehyoon spoke quietly, looking up at the now-empty spheres above their heads. “Are you feeling okay now?”

“I think so…” Junhee sat back, looking down at the water skin. “Thank you… I… I don’t know what would have happened if you didn’t find me.”

“You don’t need to thank me.” Sehyoon shook his head. “But you need to talk to Donghun about this.”

Junhee looked away. He had a feeling he wasn’t just referencing losing control of his magic.

“Junhee..?”

“Sehyoon… Can you not tell the others about what just happened?” Junhee met his eyes. “Please?”

For a long moment, Sehyoon searched his face. And then he sighed, getting to his feet and holding out a hand to help Junhee up. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hits angst button repeatedly*
> 
> I've been so excited to write this chapter for so long, and I really had a lot of fun with it (angst really is a treat to write...). I really hope that you enjoyed reading it!
> 
> I was really happy to see people were excited about Yuchan's return; I always felt so awful for killing him off in 'Sunsets' - although I always knew he would making his comeback..! 
> 
> As always, thank you so, so much for reading and for your kind comments. I'll see you soon for the next chapter!
> 
> Oh - and this fic went from a planned 9 chapters to 10, and it's now gone to 11. I promise I will eventually stop adding chapters to my plan..!
> 
> With love,  
> The Indigo Dragonfly
> 
> [Come say hi on Twitter!](https://twitter.com/IndiDragonfly)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sight of Donghun collapsing into his ex-lover's arms knocked Junhee for six. Unable to focus on the joys of seeing Yuchan again, he ran off into the woods only to lose control of his magic, as images of Donghun and Amiri together consumed him...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here be dragons..! A reminder that mature themes lie ahead.
> 
> Please note! - I made the decision to increase this fic's rating from Mature to Explicit. I'm likely erring on the side of caution on this one, but I would much rather rate it too high than rate it too low and catch some readers by surprise. So please remind yourself of the tags... And then on we go..!

Junhee’s legs were still wobbling when he and Sehyoon made it back to the house. His magic was totally drained from his outburst, and though his body was rested, mentally he was left exhausted.

“Hey, you’re-”

Donghun stopped, looking at Junhee with wide eyes as he walked inside. Junhee met his eyes briefly, and struggled to hold back the tears that threatened.

“I don’t feel so good,” he mumbled, excusing himself. He felt Donghun’s eyes follow him across to the bedroom.

He didn’t bother pulling off his clothes. He collapsed into bed, still unmade from the night, and closed his eyes.

He wasn’t left alone for long.

“Hey.” Junhee cracked open one eye as Donghun came and sat on the bed next to him. “Little one, what’s wrong? Don’t say nothing-” he added, as Junhee started to wave away his concerns. “Your magic feels… It feels weak.” He reached out anxious fingers that came to skim over Junhee’s chest.

“I lost control of it.” Junhee sat up, keeping his eyes away. “Just a bit.”

For a long moment, Donghun didn’t speak. His eyes stayed fixed on Junhee’s face, until the silence swelled so vast in the air it was like it was pushing them both apart.

“Little one… Is this about Amiri?”

Junhee looked up. Donghun’s downturned eyes were sad, and confused – and Junhee knew that keeping his feelings from him was hurting him. Yet at the same time… At the same time, if he spoke his fears out loud, he might get an answer he never wanted to hear.

“Can we go for a walk?” Junhee croaked instead, because for all his exhaustion, the tension in this little room was stifling, and he felt a desperate tug to be among the flowers.

“Of course.” Donghun watched him a moment longer, and then got to his feet.

They took the same path through the forest that they always did, petals tickling their legs as they walked in silence. Donghun reached out and brushed his fingers against Junhee’s in question, and Junhee let their hands lock together. If he could hold onto Donghun for the rest of his life, he would.

Junhee’s mind was empty as they walked. His eyes still stung from crying, his mind weary from restless sleep, and his entire body aching with the emptiness of his depleted magic. He just let his feet carry him through the woods until they reached a familiar vast tree.

“Shall we?” Donghun let go of his hand as he nodded skywards; Junhee nodded and followed him into the air.

Junhee had only joined Donghun on his favourite tree branch a couple of times, and it had always been to talk about something important. After all, it had been Donghun’s place to sit and gather his thoughts, back when he had felt the weight of the world on his shoulders as the Lost Boys’ leader. Junhee settled onto the branch now, taking a deep breath of fresh morning air and letting his eyes set out over the darkness of Neverland. Not for the first time, he ached to see its daylight colours the way they once had been.

“I hate seeing you like this.”

Junhee looked at Donghun next to him with a pang of his heart. “Like what?”

“Sad.” Donghun looked down, swinging his legs. The light of his magical orb sent his wings glittering. “Junhee, I-”

“Can I go first?” Junhee was surprised at the tone of his own voice as it escaped his throat: high and wobbly. Donghun looked up with alarm, and reached to take his hand. The gesture only made the tears stick harder in Junhee’s throat.

How was he supposed to say this?

How was he supposed to let him go?

Junhee closed his eyes. He summoned all the love in his heart, all the desire for Donghun to be happy – that thing that burned within him stronger than any magic ever could.

“Hun…” he started, his name tasting both sweet and bitter in his mouth like acid and caramel. “I just… I love you.” He looked down. Shit, the first tear was already dripping from his nose – so much for holding it back. “But the thing I want most is to be happy. And I… I watched you with Amiri. I saw how much he means to you and… and now you know he never betrayed you, I…” Junhee sniffed. Another tear fell to the ground far below. “I want you to know that… If you’ve realised you still love him, I understand. I don’t… I don’t know how it works with Sprites, b-but… If you realise you were always supposed to be with him, I understand. I’ll just go home once I can. It’s okay.”

Silence.

Silence for so long, that Junhee was forced to look up.

Donghun’s face was flooded with tears.

That was the sight that clenched Junhee’s heart like a vice. He had been right. Donghun loved Amiri, and the tears on his face showed the guilt he felt for having to turn Junhee away now.

“Hun?” His voice cracked.

“Junhee, I…” Donghun started.

Junhee swallowed hard, and braced himself for the words to come.

“Little one, how could you even _think_ I’d choose anyone but you?”

Junhee’s eyes snapped up.

“I…” Donghun moved closer, searching Junhee’s face with wet eyes. “I want _you_. I love _you_. Yes, I loved Amiri once. But I love you now. And I always will.”

Junhee’s bottom lip trembled, and he leaned against Donghun’s chest, beginning to cry.

“Junhee…” Donghun stroked his hair, holding him close. “Please don’t cry…”

“I just… I suddenly feel really stupid…” Junhee leaned back, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. He hiccupped on his tears. “You really don’t love him that way?”

“No.” Donghun shook his head. “He was a big part of my life, and I lived with the guilt of his death for a _long_ time. And now… that’s gone, and it’s a relief I can’t even begin to explain. You know, it’s heavy, thinking that someone you put your faith in turned against you and tried to hurt you. And it’s even heavier living with the memory of the light fading out of their eyes.” Donghun swallowed hard and turned away. “So I feel… this enormous burden has been lifted. Not to mention that it was a shock too. You don’t expect someone you killed to come back from the dead. You don’t expect to get a second chance to talk to them. It’s a chance that’s… healed a big wound in my heart. I don’t love him anymore, not that way, but I do want his happiness. And knowing he’s probably feeling the same relief I feel to be able to talk again, and clear up what happened… I’m so relieved he’s happy.”

Junhee’s tears had stopped. He swallowed, listening to Donghun’s words.

It suddenly struck him that he had been monumentally selfish.

So caught up in his own private fears of losing Donghun’s love, he had completely sidelined Donghun’s feelings, and how they could be far, far more complex than anything he had been imagining.

“I… That makes sense.” Junhee cleared his throat, squeezing Donghun’s hand. “Jesus, Hun, I’m so sorry. I spent the last day sulking when you were going through this huge thing and I… I was just thinking about myself.”

“Hey, no, don’t say that…” Donghun shushed him, pushing back his hair. “I understand… I just thought you needed space or something. You kept walking away from me and not looking at me.”

Junhee’s neck went hot. “I’m sorry. I… I handled the whole thing badly.” He put his other hand over the ones they clasped together. “I should have talked to you, instead of jumping to conclusions and running away.”

A small smile twitched up at one side of Donghun’s mouth. “Honestly… Yeah, you should have. Next time, just tell me what’s on your mind, instead of running into the woods and nearly burning the whole place down.”

“Ah… Sehyoon told you.”

“He did. He told me you said not to, but… I needed to know.” Donghun’s eyes softened, and he cupped Junhee’s face. “So yeah, next time… talk to me, little one.”

“Next time… Got any other ghostly exes I should know about?”

Donghun snorted. “Not that I know of.”

They sat together, swinging their legs gently. Junhee mulled over Donghun’s words, until his phaerie spoke again.

“Junhee? I’m sorry too.” He looked up. “I didn’t handle this well either. I was so caught up in how I was feeling, I didn’t stop to look out for you, and I should have. Of course it was going to be difficult for you to see me with Amiri… Especially with me hugging him and abandoning you without a word on the beach to talk with him. I should have checked in with you.”

Junhee smiled faintly. “It’s okay.” He leaned his head on Donghun’s shoulder, closing his eyes as Donghun tilted his head to kiss Junhee’s hair.

“Are you feeling okay now? Your magic seems really drained.”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Junhee sighed. “It was really stupid but I… I just convinced myself I’d lose you and I couldn’t stop my thoughts from spiralling. And once my magic slipped out, it just kept coming.” He paused, thinking. “I catastrophise a lot. Not just about you… I always have done. I always think about the worst thing is that could happen, then I fixate on it.” He smiled, tracing patterns on Donghun’s leg. “I’m sorry that I do that.”

“Maybe you do, a little.” Donghun wrapped an arm around him tightly. “But I could definitely help you by being more considerate of you.”

Junhee sat up, meeting Donghun’s eyes. He suddenly felt light, like a pressing weight on his shoulders had vanished. “Let’s try and communicate better.” He thought about Amiri, his own private worries about Donghun regretting leaving Neverland when they had been back home, and Donghun’s worries that Junhee would run off with someone else. “We both worry about a lot of dumb shit that we could not have to deal with if we just said it to each other.”

“You’re right.” Donghun smiled. “We both love hard… but can communicate badly, sometimes. I’ll try harder.”

“I will too.”

Junhee couldn’t help his smile as Donghun cupped his face and kissed him, full of softness and stars.

“I love you so much, little one.”

“I love you too.” Junhee leaned against the tree trunk and pulled Donghun into his arms, breathing in the earthy smell of his hair. “How are you feeling now, with the whole Amiri thing? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. The shock’s worn off.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

Donghun cuddled closer to Junhee and wrapped his hand around his knee tenderly. “Yeah.”

~

Hindsight was a wonderful thing. Junhee sat out on the lakeside, the last of the water drying from his hair after washing up, thinking about the last couple of days. Now, it seemed obvious that he should have just talked to Donghun instead of getting so wildly upset – he felt a little silly for his outburst, but it couldn’t be helped.

He would just try and do better from now on.

He heard footsteps from the house behind him, and thought it was Donghun. He looked round with a smile – but instead of a phaerie, he found Amiri walking towards him with a questioning smile.

“Hey. Mind if I join you?”

Junhee’s eyebrows rose in surprise, but he quickly masked it. “Of course.” He shuffled his wings as Amiri sat down beside him, crossing his legs. Junhee cleared his throat, feeling awkward. He had barely spoken a word to Amiri since his arrival. Hardly a warm welcome.

“Donghun told me about how you wound up getting some magic.” Amiri leaned back on his arms, an easy smile on his face. “Swear to god, there’s nothing but trouble that comes from hanging around with those phaeries.”

Junhee glanced at Amiri’s grin, and his own lips twitched up in amusement. “You’re telling me. I’ve forgotten what the quiet life is like.”

“Right?” Amiri shook his head with a mocking sigh. “To think the worst of my troubles used to be worrying about a shark showing up or the odd grim-looking spider.”

Junhee snorted softly, and glanced at Amiri’s arms in curiosity. The ink markings wove like a tapestry down his muscles.

“You said you’re from New Zealand?” he asked. “Are your tattoos something that’s common there?”

“They’re very common for Maori!” Amiri stretched out his arms to show off the patterns. “They’re called tā moko. Used to be a thing about rank and status, way back when – and making you more attractive to a potential partner. These days it’s more about representing your Maori identity. ‘Course, some non-Maoris starts nicking the designs, but that’s by-the-by…”

“They look so cool…” Junhee tilted his head, impressed by the inkwork.

“Thanks.” Amiri flashed him a smile of genuine gratitude, and wrapped his arms around his knees. “Can’t say I know much about South Korean culture either. That’s on me. Always heard lots about Japan and China, but not much about Korea?”

Junhee smiled, skimming a stone over the lake. “Yeah. Japan’s our big shiny neighbour that everyone’s been fascinated by for a long time. Little Korea has always been in its shadow.”

“What’s South Korea like? Do you like being Korean?”

He thought about his answer to Amiri’s question for a moment. “I love Korea, and I’m proud to be Korean. You heard of the Korean war, right?” Amiri nodded. “Well people always seem to forget that it really wasn’t that long ago. You know, it was only the 1950s. Back then, there were like, thirty-million people in North and South Korea combined. Nearly three-million of them were killed in the war, and a _third_ of the country were homeless. Ten percent of Jeju’s entire population got killed. The country was split into north and south, and South Korea had absolutely nothing.” He looked out over the lake thoughtfully. “The Korean people – my grandparents’ generation, my parents’ generation – literally rebuilt the country from dust. And now it’s this established country with like… money. People wanna eat our food and learn our language and listen to our music. I’m proud of that.”

“Wow.” Amiri skimmed a stone. “I had no idea. Sounds like one hell of a country.”

“It is.” Junhee sent his next pebble bounding across the water. “But all that has a downside too. It sort of embedded a sense of competition in the country. Kids are raised to work so hard. People are really competitive about university and stuff. Marrying into the right family.” He looked down. “And it’s pretty conservative. So… Being a non-competitive gay guy who wants to quietly work in a flower shop isn’t exactly a parent’s dream.”

“Ah.” Amiri looked at him sympathetically. “Mom and Dad not supportive?”

“Nope. I don’t speak to them anymore.” Only now did Junhee realise just how much he was spilling – and he glanced up at Amiri’s gentle eyes. There was something incredibly calming about his presence. “How about you? Do Maori people accept being gay?”

Amiri smiled, tucking a strand of dark hair behind his ear. “Well, that’s up for debate. Until fairly recently… not really. It was sort of generally preached that Maori were free from ‘perversion’.” Amiri made air quotes in the air and Junhee snorted softly. “But there’s been old Maori texts dug up that make reference to Takatāpui – that means love between two people of the same sex. Turns out ye olde Maori were probably pretty free and easy with who was fucking who.” Amiri grinned. “A lot of us think that everything was pretty sexually liberal until… well, until the Europeans found us and brought their Christianity with them.”

They both exchanged a glance, and Junhee gave Amiri a knowing look.

“Not trying to sound disrespectful.” Amiri threw another stone across the lake. “I was raised Christian, and I still am. I believe in God, have my faith. It preaches a lot of good lessons. But back then, it taught that homosexuality was a sin - and some people still use faith as a scapegoat for their prejudices. Anyway, that’s where we are. There’s still a lot of debate over whether early Maoris were liberal, whether they were ‘corrupted’ before first contact, or whether first contact was the thing that did the corrupting… But long story short, it’s getting better.” He let out a little laugh. “Wow… talk about getting deep.”

“It’s okay.” Junhee smiled, feeling himself warming to Amiri. It had been a long time since he’d met someone so easy to talk to. It only added to his guilt around his reaction to Amiri’s arrival yesterday. They might look very different and come from very different places… but perhaps they had a lot more in common than he could have imagined.

For a little while, they continued skimming stones in silence.

“Can I ask you something?” Junhee said after some time had passed.

“’Course.”

“You… you still love Donghun, don’t you?” His heart skipped at his own question, but he felt like he wanted to know. Donghun may not still have feelings for Amiri, but it didn’t mean Amiri had ever fallen out of love in return.

His question was met with a warm smile.

“I’ll always love Donghun.” Amiri’s voice was filled with love, and Junhee looked at him, overwhelmed at thinking about the way he must feel. “But it’s not what you’re thinking.”

“…How so?”

“I’m not alive anymore. I’m a Sprite. And in this in-between place… I don’t feel any desire, anymore. No desire for sex, or contact – I don’t even feel romantic inclinations. What’s left is just… affection, pure and simple. All I want is for Donghun to be happy.” He looked up with a smile, meeting Junhee’s eyes. “That’s why I’m so glad that he has you, Junhee.”

Junhee’s heart skipped. “What do you mean?”

“You make him _so_ happy.” Amiri shook his head slowly. “You two… You’re supposed to be together. When we talked on the beach, the first thing he told me about was _you_. About how you met, and everything about you, and I’ve never seen the gold in his eyes shine like when he was talking about you. You mean the absolute world to him. And nothing could make me happier than knowing you found each other.”

A hard lump began to form in Junhee’s throat, and he blinked quickly.

“I’m sorry I didn’t give you the best of welcomes,” he said, more ashamed than ever of how he had reacted now he had taken the time to get to know Amiri. “For what it’s worth… I’m glad you’re here.” Junhee looked up, meeting Amiri’s eyes. “And I’m glad Donghun’s always had you, too.”

Amiri smiled. “Thanks, Junhee.”

~

Dinner that night was infinitely happier. The five Lost Boys, along with Junhee and Amiri, ate a hearty meal prepared by Sehyoon and Byeongkwan, and their table was filled with chatter and laughter. Junhee felt warm and happy – and for a while, he forgot about the endless night outside, or the Demons they would soon have to find a way to deal with.

The mortal among them headed to bed soon after – and Junhee smiled as Donghun slipped his arms around him from behind in their room.

“Hey, you.” He closed his eyes as Donghun kissed his neck, caught up on the sparks that passed between their skin.

“Hey.” He let go, allowing Junhee to climb into bed before following him and sitting cross-legged among the blankets. “So… you spent some time with Amiri.”

“I did.” Junhee went to sit with his back against the wall, but Donghun pulled him into his lap instead. Junhee wrapped his legs around him and looped his arms around his neck. “I really like him.”

Donghun smiled, kissing his chin. “I thought you two would get along.” His eyes shone in the amber light. “It made me really happy tonight. Seeing the both of you get on… And the boys, too. All my favourite people.”

Junhee smiled, tucking back Donghun’s hair. “Amiri told me something about you.”

“Uh-oh.” Donghun raised an eyebrow quickly. “What’s he got on me that I’ve forgotten about?”

“Oh I’m sure he has some gossip.” Junhee grinned. “But… actually, he told me that he can tell I make you happy.” He looked down, his ears going warm. “That you talked about me a lot.”

“Of course I did.” Donghun pulled him in tighter. “You make me happier than anything else has ever done… You’re my little one.”

“I love you.” Junhee closed his eyes as he melted into their kiss, taking a breath through his nose as Donghun’s tongue brushed gently against his.

There was nothing more beautiful than the way Donghun came faintly undone when they kissed. Minutes passed and he pulled away: lips glistening and swollen, eyes heavy-lidded and foggy. Junhee knew he would look the same as he looked down into Donghun’s face.

“I’m so glad you’re mine,” he whispered, and Donghun’s hands tightened on him in response.

“Always.”

Donghun tipped him back to lie on the bed, slotting between Junhee’s legs and clutching his face to kiss him. Junhee reached deeply into his mouth, and at the same time willed an empty sphere into existence above their heads.

“What’s that for?” Donghun murmured, leaning back with a glance upwards.

“Sehyoon showed me something… A way to let my magic out safely instead of just fighting to keep it inside. It made a lot of sense in my head.”

“Does that mean..?” Donghun looked at him with such a singular hunger that had Junhee been standing, his knees might just have buckled.

“I think so.”

Donghun leaned back over him, kissing him with increased fervour. Just like he had been shown, Junhee let his magic slip out into the sphere every time he felt a jolt of strong emotion, and flowers of violet ice began to burst and shatter inside the bubble. No magic crept out and caused chaos.

Suddenly, _desperately_ aware of what that meant, Junhee began to pull off Donghun’s shirt with such desire the material ripped.

“Sorry,” he gasped against Donghun’s mouth.

“Don’t be.” Donghun sat back over him, and then with a snarl grabbed Junhee’s shirt and deliberately ripped it open, the material tearing in his hands with ease.

Junhee whimpered as the skin of their chests touched.

Closer, closer, closer. His inner core of magic yearned, ached, tugged for Donghun. He needed every bit of his skin against his. More than that. He wanted to feel him everywhere. He didn’t want to ache for his other half anymore. He just wanted them to be whole.

He sat up with Donghun, chasing his mouth. Their lips stayed locked together as they helped each other out of the rest of their clothes.

Junhee let out a helpless noise as Donghun’s hand slid down his stomach and wrapped around his length. Fractal flowers splintered inside his sphere, growing and blossoming in time with the graceful strokes of Donghun’s fingers. Donghun looked up at the bubble, his eyes filled with desire.

“Fuck, it’s like I can _see_ how it makes you feel,” he murmured in a low voice.

But Junhee couldn’t hear him. It felt like an age since Donghun’s hands had been on him. And it was the first time since they’d both had magic, and just that gentle up-and-down caress made him shudder. Tingling warmth burned where Donghun’s skin met his, and he could have damn-well let it consume him.

He scrabbled to sit up on his knees, and ducked his head between Donghun’s thighs without warning.

“ _Fuck_ …” Donghun hissed, laying back and carding tight fingers through Junhee’s hair. His muscles quivered and his belly clenched, and Junhee whined as best as he could with his mouth occupied.

Among the bursts of dazzling violet shards in Junhee’s bubble, gold blooms began to swell and shatter. Junhee watched Donghun’s eyes roll back, as he had to let his own magic – control honed over an entire lifetime – slip out into that safe space as his own constraint wavered. Junhee whined again, feeling Donghun’s blood and magic both pulse against his tongue.

“Skies… _Skies…_ I love you…” Donghun’s voice was broken and wavering, and Junhee sucked him in deeper, drowning in pleasure at the way he tasted like honeyed heaven.

Donghun fought to push himself up onto his elbows, looking down with parted lips as Junhee worked him with his tongue. With a groan, he reached forward and began to toy with Junhee’s wings. That ferociously intense buzz that felt like tendrils touching him everywhere inside shot through Junhee, and he jerked backwards, head coming up as he gasped for air. His own fumbling hands reached for Donghun’s wings too, stroking and scratching at those silken gold threads.

Somehow, Junhee ended up straddling Donghun’s lap, his back arching and causing their chests to press together. Their breathing was loud and fractured with moans. And all the while, the two halves of their magical whole strained for one another, a hair’s breadth from being connected again.

“Can I..?” Donghun’s fingers skated down his lower back, making Junhee’s entire body twitch.

“Yes. Please… yes.”

Junhee was pressed so tight against Donghun, he physically felt the flash of magic leave Donghun’s body as he willed a familiar warm dampness into existence at the end of his fingertips. Junhee slid his fingers through Donghun’s hair and pressed a hard kiss onto his forehead as a warm finger probed inside him.

Gold stars flashed across Junhee’s eyes and he jolted to clutch Donghun’s shoulders.

“Ah!”

Donghun stopped immediately.

“Are you okay?” he asked, looking up into Junhee’s face. “Do you need to take a break?”

“No…” Junhee shook his head, leaning on Donghun’s forehead with his own. “Don’t stop.”

It felt like every single muscle in his body became a tightly-wound spring, tense and shaking, and yet his body accepted Donghun instantly. Donghun willed more damp warmth onto his fingers and Junhee gasped, one thigh jerking involuntarily.

“Kiss me,” Donghun whispered, taking Junhee’s jaw in his other hand and drawing his mouth to his.

It was enough to overwhelm him: his tongue in his mouth, his fingers inside him, all but breaking his body apart with pleasure. He sensed Donghun’s magic in every cell of his gold-freckled body: every bit of skin, every vein, every curve of muscle. It was like discovering his body for the first time – no, discovering _any_ body for the first time, mapping out every sinew like he had been born blind and finally given the gift of sight.

“I’m ready,” Junhee breathed, sweat already starting to bead at his temples. Donghun looked up at him with blown-out eyes.

“Skies, I’m not sure I am.”

They both grinned, wild-haired and breathless.

Junhee lifted up onto his knees and clutched Donghun tight. Gradually, his phaerie guided him down onto him.

He wasn’t sure if that feral noise came from him, or Donghun, or both.

He couldn’t tell who was who anymore.

The two halves of their whole raced back together, and Junhee was filled up with a sense of completion, of calmed chaos, of total and absolute _pleasure_.

Everything in his vision turned gold. Donghun’s skin glowed, the room was gilded… It was like a filter had slotted over his world and turned it golden. He trembled, completely still, completely _filled_ , staring into Donghun’s eyes. There, amongst the gold flecks in his dark eyes, the tiniest pinpricks of violet had blinked into existence like a new constellation.

Magic slipped from Junhee’s body along with a gasp as Donghun rolled his hips up ever-so-carefully, and violet and gold criss-crossed through their safety bubble like New Years Eve fireworks.

“Junhee… Junhee…” One of Donghun’s arms snaked around his waist tight, gripping him as they dared to move their bodies in one joint fluid motion.

They moved as one, slow, and seamless, until both of them were letting out a whimper with every gentle roll.

The air itself seemed to shift and shimmer, the entire room swimming.

Junhee let out a full cry as Donghun’s hips twitched up suddenly, clutching a fistful of his hair to steady himself. With a distance like he was watching himself from above, he realised tears had escaped the corners of his eyes.

“Junhee I… I can’t keep this up for long…”

“I can’t either… Can we… _Ah…_ ”

In one fluid motion, Donghun tipped Junhee onto his back, held his legs over his shoulders, and let go of all self-restraint.

Junhee’s back arched hard. His fingers scratched at the bedding, and then at Donghun’s arms, his nails raking down his freckled skin. The tingling he was so used to when their skin touched… But not like this. Not inside him. Not a thousand times more intense, burning and blazing and filling him and _fuck_ , Donghun leaned over him and locked their mouths together, his hand gripping the back of Junhee’s thigh.

His climax came hard and relentless.

The room disappeared.

Nothing but gold.

Then gold and brilliant violet.

_Pleasure._

_Heat._

_Love._

…

…

…

…

…

…

Junhee gasped for his breath, like he was surfacing from the sea.

He and Donghun clutched each other fiercely hard. Both of them quivered as though doused in ice water.

For a long time, he could do nothing but breathe.

After an age, he opened his eyes, just as Donghun lifted his head to look at him.

“I love you so much.” Donghun’s voice was low and hoarse, and the way he cupped Junhee’s face with a rough hand sent tremors down Junhee’s neck.

“I love you too.”

Donghun brushed a thumb gently over Junhee’s cheek, wiping away the stain of tears. They stared at each other, hearts pounding in the silence.

Donghun glanced away.

“Wow.”

Junhee followed his line of sight.

The room was absolute chaos. Both windows were shattered entirely, glass blown across the floor in particles of dust. Vases were upended, parchment and quills torn into a hundred pieces and strewn across the space.

Both of them blinked slowly at the mess, before Donghun returned his forehead to Junhee’s.

They only moved a fraction, rearranging the way their legs were tangled. They were still clutching each other as they both fell into the deepest, most blissful sleep of their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, DongJun! Communication! Is! Key!
> 
> I'd love to know what you thought of this chapter! Did it go the way you thought it would? Are you relieved Amiri turned out to be one of the good'uns?
> 
> Thank you as always for sticking with story, it really does mean a lot to me.
> 
> With love,  
> The Indigo Dragonfly
> 
> [Come say hi on Twitter!](https://twitter.com/IndiDragonfly)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The arrival of Yuchan and Amiri sent Junhee's head spinning - but after a little communication with Donghun, he realised that nothing can get in the way of the love they have for one another.
> 
> But while their group is back together, the night still cloaks Neverland, and the Demons are still at large...

Junhee woke up to a nuzzling at his neck.

He pouted first, dreams still dancing behind his eyes. And then he grew aware of the arm curled around him, and the body pressed against his back, and that it was gentle lips skating across his skin. His mouth curled up into a smile.

“Good morning, sleepyhead.” Donghun’s voice was a gentle purr, and Junhee summoned just about enough strength to crack one eye open. He smiled at the freckled face above him, framed with a halo of wild brown hair.

“Hey.” He rolled onto his back, his fingers subconsciously finding Donghun’s waist. “Did something fun happen last night? I can’t remember.” He grinned at Donghun’s faux-offended look.

“Not much. It was alright, I guess.”

Junhee grinned, pulling him down and pressing a slow kiss against his lips.

“Mh. Got a bit of collateral damage to clean up, though.”

Junhee tilted his head to the side. Ah. So that bit hadn’t been a dream either.

“Oops.” He propped himself up on one elbow, surveying the carnage of the room around them. “Can-”

“Hun? Junhee? Breakfast!”

They both sat up at the sound of the raised voice. Donghun shrugged and they both reached for clothes to pull on. Junhee dressed first, and left Donghun scrabbling around for a shirt as he left their room.

“Morn…ing?”

Junhee stopped as he was met by four faces watching him from the low table they sat around, each with an identical expression and raised eyebrows.

“That’s what you’ve got to say for yourself? Morning?”

Junhee looked at Yuchan, at the playful glint in his eyes, at the smirk creeping at his lips – and his face immediately turned scarlet.

“Oh, _now_ you’re shy!”

Junhee shrank back at the sight of four grins, pulling his shirt halfway up his face to cover his high colour.

Behind him, the bedroom door opened, and a finally-dressed Donghun walked past him, oblivious to the teasing eyes that turned to watch him.

“What exactly _were_ you doing last night?” Yuchan asked mischievously as Donghun sat down cross-legged at the table with them.

Donghun didn’t bat an eyelid. He reached for a bowl of fruit and began to serve himself. “Fucking,” he replied, as easily as though talking about the weather. Junhee’s face only got hotter.

Embarrassed, he slinked guiltily to join the others for breakfast, keeping his eyes down.

“Uh-huh.” Byeongkwan leaned his elbows on the table, watching Donghun drily. Junhee noticed he looked a little frazzled; his hair was mussed and dark circles sat under his eyes. “Reckon you could warn us next time you’re about to blast a two-mile radius of sexual energy across Neverland? _You_ know what that shit does to us. I swear to the skies, I’m not into men but I nearly damn-well jumped Sehyoon…”

Donghun looked up from his breakfast, cocked one eyebrow, and gave the smallest, naughtiest grin Junhee had ever seen pass his face.

“Sorry,” he said, without an ounce of apology in his voice.

Byeongkwan snorted, shaking his head to hide the smirk that crept onto his own face.

Junhee’s blush eventually died from his cheeks, and the conversation turned to matters considerably more wholesome. Junhee couldn’t help but find breakfast extra delicious today: the bread softer, the berries sweeter, the petal blend he drank tangier than before. And the whole time they ate, he and Donghun’s eyes met again and again across the table, each one accompanied by an echo of a private smile.

“Hun, what’s it like?” Yuchan shuffled his wings, his head tilted to one side as the others finished picking at food. “Living in the other world.”

Donghun looked over, an eyebrow raised. “Talk about bringing up big questions at breakfast.” He sat back, leaning on his hands. “It’s different. At first I didn’t go out, while I got used to not having magic or my wings. I needed a bit of time for that.”

“He used to wobble over a lot…” Junhee added, a nostalgic smile finding its way onto his face.

“Mh. Pretty hard to balance when you suddenly lose a part of your body. But I adapted fairly quickly. And then I got to explore everything else.” Donghun glanced at Junhee. “Music, shopping malls, food… Our travels to get seeds didn’t even show us the half of it. There’s like… you know those moving pictures we saw sometimes? Well, there’s something called a cinema, where people go and watch a long story in moving pictures on a big square. Oh, and there’s places all the little human kids go every morning. Ah… They’re so cute.” Donghun propped his chin in his hands, smiling. “They all wear the same thing and they have these packs on their backs and they go to this place to learn things together.”

Junhee smiled as he watched him. _God, I never thought anyone in the world would have the power to make me even vaguely broody…_

It also dawned on him that he was thinking about home for the first time in at least a week. It was like Neverland had consumed his heart once again, leaving no room for homesickness or a longing to go back. He hadn’t even worried about what it would mean for him to go missing a second time, and what people back home must think…

“Was it really strange not to have magic?” Yuchan asked. “And it must have felt weird to get it back after so long, too.”

“Well…” Donghun’s smile faded. “Yes and no. I’d been getting these flare-ups. Out of nowhere, I’d feel really sick, and for an hour or two, I’d just have this… uncontrollable magic inside me.”

“Woah…” Yuchan’s eyes widened. “So you could still use it sometimes?”

Donghun shook his head. “No… It was beyond my reach. It’s like… It was like my core wasn’t there anymore. No magical store, nothing to draw from, but magic in the rest of my body and in my veins.”

Junhee’s heart skipped. Another thing he hadn’t taken the time to worry about.

“Is there anything you think we can do while you’re here to make sure it doesn’t happen again when you go back?” Sehyoon asked.

“I don’t know…”

They were silent for a moment.

“You know,” Yuchan began slowly, his face pensive. “It might not happen again.” He looked at the others’ curious faces and continued. “Look at us as Sprites. We had unfinished stuff here to deal with, and we clung on to our lives so hard we became Sprites. _That’s_ what feeling unresolved can do to you.”

“I don’t understand,” Donghun said. “What does this have to do with me and those flare-ups?”

“Well… You had a lot of unfinished business here too.” Yuchan shrugged. “Or, less unfinished business, more… unresolved emotions? Maybe… something to do with the two of us?”

He indicated himself and Amiri.

Donghun frowned. “You think I clung on to my guilt so hard it stopped me making the transition to the other world properly?”

“Perhaps. It’s just an idea.” Yuchan shook his head. “But maybe you didn’t fully want to let go of your old self - or you _did,_ but you felt like… you shouldn’t. And that guilt stopped you from letting go of your magic in full.”

They all sat, struck dumb.

“Skies, Channie, since when did you get all profound?” Donghun’s voice was gruff, and he rubbed the back of his neck with a scowl.

“Sorry!” Yuchan immediately lit up in a smile and began gathering plates. “Look at me, spouting shit. Let’s go teach Junhee some cool magic stuff!”

~

The daily routine of magic lessons, sparring, and delicious dinners became all the more enjoyable with Amiri and Yuchan alongside them. Yuchan was keen to fight with Junhee, his devilish grin never far from his face as their daggers clashed. Amiri would sit and watch with an amused eyebrow raised, giving them both feedback on their stances and strategies.

Junhee had grown to love one thing even more, however: his daily flights with Donghun. Guided by their magical spheres of light, they flew across Neverland together, letting Junhee see more of the place and its secrets than he had ever had access to before.

Junhee pushed back his hair with a smile as he stood on the beach. He and Donghun had flown down here today as their daily practice, and Junhee felt proud of how naturally flying came to him now.

“Wanna go for a swim?”

Junhee glanced up at Donghun, surprised. “Oh, I didn’t nickname myself ‘Ocean’ as a kid for nothing.”

Grinning, they both stripped down to their underwear and left their clothes in a heap on the beach. The first of the waves lapped at Junhee’s toes through the wet sand, and as always, he was surprised that no shock of cold came with it.

“Ah, it’s always so warm…” Junhee cooed lovingly. Wasting no time, he waded further out, took a deep breath, and then dived under in one fluid motion.

The waters were clearer than anything he had ever seen back home. His little light followed him under, and sent refractive light shimmering through the water, glistening off rainbow coral – blushing pinks, deep purples, fiery oranges, sunny yellows. Schools of shimmering fish swept past him, glittering silver and copper as the light flashed on their scales.

Junhee smiled at the graceful form that joined him. Donghun’s hair ebbed gently around him in the currents, his deep skin glowing and his freckles sparkling in the light. His wings drifted like petals caught in a river, light and delicate.

Junhee found himself hoping profoundly that right now, he could look at least a fraction as beautiful for Donghun in return.

He surfaced for breath, his hair sticking to his face. Donghun followed him up, blinking away the water steaming down his eyes. Junhee smiled, reaching to push back a strand of his hair caught on his lashes.

“I never get used to how clear your waters are,” he said, gently staying afloat on the ocean’s surface.

“Well,” Donghun said, equally at home in the water. “Why wouldn’t it be? Every creature in Neverland looks after the world we live in.”

He carried on, talking about caring for the environment, and looking after the ecosystems, and… and… and Junhee wasn’t listening.

“You’re so pretty.” He blurted it out over the top of Donghun, making him stop and raise an eyebrow.

“I… Huh?” He grinned, drifting closer and putting his hands on Junhee’s hips. “We’re talking about the world and its longevity and all you can think about is that I’m pretty?”

Junhee smiled, his cheeks warming, and nodded. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“Don’t say sorry.” Donghun kissed him, stroking back his wet hair. “You’re very pretty too.”

“You know… I’ve gotten so much paler since being here. The one plus side of not having a sun.” He smiled, and Donghun tilted his head quizzically.

“Why’s that a plus side?”

“Well, you know, back home people think being paler is more handsome and stuff.” Junhee grinned. “Korean people always touch themselves up to look brighter. That’s why we have those apps on our phones you said made you look like a ghoul.”

He expected to make Donghun laugh, but it only drew out a frown. “I mean this with full respect to your people, little one… But that’s some bullshit.”

“Huh?”

“Seriously.” Donghun pulled him closer, wrapping his arms around him in the water. “Whatever colour your skin is when you’re happy and healthy… That’s the most beautiful.” He kissed Junhee’s cheek. “You don’t think I should be paler, do you?”

“No! No, of course I don’t. I love your skin… I wouldn’t change a single thing about you, and I’m not just saying that.”

“Exactly.” Donghun touched his nose with his own. “I don’t want anything but the real you too. And I love your skin-” He kissed his shoulder. “-And I love your dark hair-” A kiss on his temple. “-And I love your dark eyes-” His lips touched below his eyebrow. “And I don’t want you to listen to some weird shit anyone else told you before about how you should look, okay?”

Junhee smiled and relented to the kiss Donghun pressed to his lips with a smile.

For a while they floated together, their legs working gently to stay at the surface, Junhee’s arms around Donghun’s neck so they could rest their heads together.

“Hey, little one?”

“Mm?”

“I think I know what we have to do. With the Demons.”

Junhee pulled back, feeling suddenly serious. “What do you mean?”

“You know I’ve been talking to the others a lot about how we could kill them, once and for all. Last night, we were talking late after you fell asleep. And I think I know. Well… I’ve always known. But I acknowledged it.”

“What do you mean?” Junhee felt his pulse pick up, and a prickle of apprehension run across his skin.

“It’s me.” Donghun met his eyes. “It’s me who can kill them. I… I know my own true potential – I always have done.”

“I don’t understand…”

“We all know how strong my magic is, right?” Donghun asked, and Junhee nodded. “Actually… I don’t think we do. Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve had a sense of just how powerful I am. At first, I just thought I would grow into it with time, and practice, and that my magic was just that of someone averagely strong. But… even as I grew into adulthood, I’ve only ever held back. I’ve only ever dipped into the _tip_ of my magic. I’ve never actually attempted to let it out in full. Fuck, I can’t even imagine doing that. I’ve only ever held myself back, restrained myself… My whole life has been keeping a tight rein on myself.”

Junhee watched him closely. “You mean… You think if you actually used your full magic, you could kill them?”

“Yes and no.” Donghun looked away. “They’re still Demons. Just chucking a huge force at them won’t work. We all know that when they’re mimicking another creature, if we kill them, they’ll just be released back into the world and go off to find new forms. The only way to kill them that we know of, is to kill them when they’re directly inhabiting a host. Like the one that took over Amiri’s body – it died with him when we killed him. And then the other one that took over me… Well, the Dokkebi managed to split us, but it died inside me because it was hosting me directly. That’s when they’re vulnerable.”

Junhee tried to keep up. “So are you saying… We need to get the remaining seven to take on host bodies directly? But how would we ever do that?”

Donghun was quiet for too long.

“Hun?”

He looked back at Junhee’s face. “When I was possessed… My father said something. ‘ _I will help you purge this demon. Then you have to decide if you’ll finally accept your capability. You have to purge seven more times to lift the darkness.’_ Something like that.”

Junhee frowned. Purge seven more times..?

It struck him hard and fast.

“Hun, you don’t mean that _you_ would have to have the seven of them inhabit you, do you?! To purge them?!”

Donghun didn’t need to answer.

“No, Hun, absolutely not, there has to be another w-”

“Little one.” Donghun reached to cup Junhee’s cheek, and he stopped talking. “I know it’s scary but… This is the only way. The Dokkebi – they may talk shit, but they’re ancient, and they know things others don’t know, understand the world in ways we can’t even comprehend.” He nodded slowly. “I can do this. Take in each Demon, one at a time, and then purge it from within myself. Just like the Dokkebi did.” He smiled faintly. “After all, I _am_ half Dokkebi.”

“But if the Dokkebi could purge you, couldn’t they do it?”

Donghun shook his head. “There’s no way they’d agree to get involved in this. Or leave their little wood hidey-hole, for that matter. But it doesn’t matter. I’m strong enough to do this. I’m strong enough to pull them into myself and purge them with my core of magic. I can do this.”

Junhee knew it was a lost cause, to argue with Donghun once he had set his mind on something. His heart thudded with the comprehension of how dangerous this would be, how violently he didn’t want Donghun to put himself in such a position that he might get hurt, or worse…

…But it was Donghun he loved. Wild, passionate, strong, selfless Donghun, the leader of the Lost Boys. And if he believed this was what they had to do… Junhee would just do whatever it took to help him as best he could.

“Okay.” Junhee nodded, looking for reassurance in Donghun’s set face. “Okay… What do we need to do next?”

Donghun squeezed him tighter. “I need to go back to the Dokkebi. This is all just my theory, but I wouldn’t mind running it past Daddy Dearest before we go marching up to Demon town. And I think… I think I need help unlocking what I’ve kept repressed for so long.” Donghun looked past Junhee, his eyes unfocussed. “It’s there, I can feel it… But I don’t know for sure how to just let it all out now I want to.”

Junhee nodded. “Okay, sweetheart. We’ll go to the Dokkebi, and we’ll see if they can help. I’ll be right with you.”

Donghun looked at him, his downturned eyes filled with love. His mouth found Junhee’s, and together they sank back under the surface, holding each other tight.

~

Junhee held tight to Donghun’s hand as they walked as a group of six through the forest.

This time, all of them – except Amiri – cast lights to guide their way as the trees grew thicker and the undergrowth denser. Coming back here, Junhee couldn’t believe he had managed to run through this place while carrying Donghun when he had been trying to escape the Demons, unlit and with no guide. It was a wonder he hadn’t ended up dead.

“We’re here.”

Donghun’s hand slipped from Junhee’s, and their group walked out into a familiar clearing. Donghun stepped ahead, his eyes sharp.

They didn’t have to announce themselves.

The same glowing forms appeared out of the trees that Junhee had seen once before. His fingers curled up with tension, but this time, as the Dokkebi approached, his head didn’t swim with unbearable lust. As they materialised before them, he was relieved to find that with his own magic inside him, he didn’t feel the urge to fall to his knees and stare in wonder.

“So, my son returns.” The golden Dokkebi – Donghun’s father – surveyed them all with an expressionless face.

“Yeah.” Donghun tucked his hands into his pockets, keeping his shoulders back. “I think I know what I have to do.”

His father watched him, a fleeting brush of a smile crossing his face. “Is that so?”

“Yeah. I… You were right. I do have capabilities that I… I’ve not lived up to. I’ve not known _how_ to live up to. But I think I realise what I’m capable of… I think deep down, I’ve always known it.”

Junhee’s heart skipped a beat – with love or fear, he didn’t know.

“Then you come to me to seek a way to unlock that within you which you cannot understand alone?”

“Yeah.” Donghun sighed. “I don’t really know if you can help. But… I’ve bound my own core for so many years. If you repress something that long… You kind of cripple it. I don’t know what to do.”

The Dokkebi smiled again. “I can help.” He raised one elegant hand to beckon Donghun closer. Reluctantly, the phaerie stepped forward.

“When Dokkebi come of age, we go through the Rite.” His father looked at him closely. “It is used as proof of adulthood, of prowess and control, but I believe it can be used in a similar way to help you remember who you are, and remember your full potential.”

“And what is this Rite?” Donghun’s face had grown wary.

“A simple task.” It became clear his father would not elaborate further. “Of no danger and no grandeur. Come back here when it is time, and I will prepare you.”

Donghun hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”

The Dokkebi nodded, and then – as a group – retreated back into the darkness of the forest.

“Skies, am I glad you didn’t come out chatting like a pretentious dickhead like that.” Byeongkwan let out a low whistle. “Your charisma definitely isn’t from your dad’s side.”

“Mh. Mom was charming as fuck.” Donghun’s tone was jokey, but Junhee noticed the way his eyes lingered on the place in the trees where the Dokkebi had retreated into.

“So… We come back when it’s time to beat some Demon ass?”

“I think it should be tomorrow.”

Junhee jolted – as did the others around him. Donghun turned to face them, his mouth set in a line.

“There’s no point waiting any longer. Junhee’s learned to use his magic as best as we can in the short timeframe, Yuchan and Amiri are here, and there’s nothing left to do. The Demons are getting stronger every day we leave them up there – and we _have_ to end this night. The flowers are wilting day by day with nothing but moonlight to help them grow.” He nodded slowly. “We go tomorrow.”

“You’re the boss…” Yuchan murmured.

They turned and began their walk back through the woods towards home. Junhee walked quietly, lost his own thoughts. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, they would face Kasper again. They would go up into the mountains, and face those awful things yet again. Tomorrow, they could finally end it. Or tomorrow… tomorrow… they could lose-

A rough hand slipped into his.

Donghun’s eyes crinkled with a smile, and Junhee’s throat suddenly constricted. He said nothing, focussing instead on walking through the darkness after the others, and on the warmth of having Donghun’s fingers locking through his own.

“Want to get a little air?” Donghun said quietly as the trees thinned and the path widened. Junhee smiled weakly and nodded.

The moons were beginning their rise above the horizon as the dark day turned into starlit night. Junhee and Donghun settled on their favourite tree branch, a cool wind catching their hair.

“It’s all happening so fast.” Junhee spoke without looking at Donghun, but leaned into the arm that wrapped around his shoulders. “I know we have to do something, it’s just… I just thought we’d have more time.”

“I know.” Donghun swung his legs gently. “But the sooner we do this, the sooner we can bring the light back. And the sooner we can go home.”

Junhee didn’t answer for a moment. Then-

“What if something happens to you?” He looked up at Donghun, letting fear finally fill his eyes. “You’re going to be dragging seven Demons inside you and purging them. That’s _crazy_ …”

“It is.” Donghun shrugged faintly. “But I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t think there’s a chance I can do it.” He hesitated, and his voice quietened. “But I know it’s crazy. I know there’s a chance I won’t be able to do it. And I know… I know it’s dangerous.”

The stickiness was back in Junhee’s throat.

“Just promise me that if you can’t carry on, you stop.”

“I will…” Donghun said, but his tone was unconvincing. Junhee knew anyway – that wasn’t the risk. The risk was in Donghun letting one of the Demons into his body, and not being able to purge it out. He could become fully possessed, it could kill him…

“Little one? If I don’t make it through tomorrow, I just want you to get away and find a way home.” Junhee met his eyes, his breath catching. “Even if I kill three or four Demons, it should be enough to weaken their eternal night. The first sunrise you get, go. Sehyoon or Byeongkwan will take you home. Just get back, and live a happy life. Okay?”

“Hun…” Junhee’s voice wobbled. “I-”

But he stopped. Donghun looked at him, his eyes begging. He needed Junhee’s promise. He was going to do this, no matter what, and Junhee’s promise of going on without him was something he needed to make him stronger. Against every fibre of his being, Junhee nodded.

Their foreheads came to rest together.

They didn’t need to say it. Didn’t need to tell each other they loved each other more than they had known it was possible to love someone, didn’t need to tell each other that they both felt that neither of them could live on without the other half of their soul. There were no words that could explain the love, and fear, and burning desire to keep the other one safe.

They just sat in the watery moonlight, their hearts beating in time with one another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy. This is it.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading. Some of you have left simply the kindest comments and almost every single time, I read them then immediately grab my laptop to do some writing. It's sounds like an exaggeration but that's how much it inspires me - so thank you, I love writing for you so, so much.
> 
> See you next time. The final two chapters are huge. Buckle in.
> 
> With love,  
> The Indigo Dragonfly 
> 
> [Find me on Twitter!](https://twitter.com/IndiDragonfly)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sense of finality has fallen over the Lost Boys. Donghun has come to realise that to defeat the remaining seven Demons, he must let each one possess him and purge it from within. A visit to the Dokkebi confirmed his suspicions - only he is strong enough to take on this responsibility, and now they await the morning to make their move.
> 
> First, Donghun must go through a rite with the Dokkebi to tap into his magical potential... and then Demons await.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here be dragons! A reminder that depictions of violence lie ahead.

The morning brought with it a grim sense of finality.

Junhee dressed quietly with the others, and watched as the entire arsenal of knives and daggers – sharpened and laid out on the table the night before – were tucked into sheaths, and belts, and boots. Donghun planted one foot on a chair and buckled a strap of leather around his thigh, his final knife slipping inside it.

The only ones who didn’t take up arms were Yuchan and Amiri; they simply watched with serious faces.

Junhee took a long breath, in and out through his nose.

He’d had precious little sleep last night. After returning from the woodlands, they had spoken at length about the plan for the following day. Donghun had taken charge, instructing them all clearly on what they had to do. Thoughts of the impending fight had still swirled in Junhee’s head long after he had curled up under the covers, his arms wrapped around Donghun’s waist.

Now, Donghun’s eyes swept over the table as it finally stood empty. He glanced up at Junhee, and stepped closer.

“You got everything?” he murmured, reaching to tug Junhee’s belt and check that his dagger was securely fixed.

Junhee smiled weakly. “Stop fussing. I’m fine.”

“Oh, I will fuss.”

What Junhee wanted to say was: it’s you we should be worrying about. But he had told himself not to do it, not to cast doubts over Donghun’s abilities. Not today, on the day he needed Junhee to believe in him most.

With one last smile, Donghun headed over to speak with Yuchan and Amiri. Junhee watched him go, trying not to think of that one conversation from last night that kept rotating in his head.

_If I take in a Demon and it takes over – I’m as good as dead. Just like what happened with Amiri. Kwan – if that happens, it’s up to you. Don’t hesitate, just kill me. It’ll take out another Demon, and that’s something. Promise me you’ll just get it done._

A long pause had followed, but Byeongkwan hadn’t looked away.

_You have my word._

“Okay!” Donghun planted his hands on his hips and looked at them in turn. “Ready?”

The walk through the woods to the Dokkebi seemed to take less time this time. Junhee wasn’t sure whether it was because of the anxiety pulsing in his heart, heightening his senses, or because inside, he wanted to grab the hands of time to stop them spinning.

But there was no stopping a plan already set in motion.

The Dokkebi were waiting in the clearing when they arrived.

“Father.” Donghun nodded his head briefly in greeting, and the golden Dokkebi returned it.

“Are you ready?” he asked, with no preamble.

The Dokkebi had Donghun sit at the very centre of the glade. Legs crossed, straight-backed, and his father sat opposite him in the same position. Junhee looked up as the other Dokkebi approached their group.

“We will create a dome of protection around the clearing. We must be outside it.”

With a jolt, Junhee stumbled to follow the others back into the trees, casting a fretful look over his shoulder.

“Protection? You said it’s not dangerous.”

“It is not.” A Dokkebi with dazzling emerald markings gave a sharp-toothed smile. “You will see.”

As they retreated to the edge of the clearing, Junhee felt a phase of strong magic from around him, and a faint shimmer appeared to encase the glade. He shuddered. Just like any other creature in Neverland, he could now sense the Dokkebi’s magical presences; so vast and crackling Junhee couldn’t bare to focus on them. It was like the magic was so ancient, so _deep_ , he could tumble down inside it if he looked for too long.

It was probably for the best he hadn’t known Donghun’s lineage before falling in love with him.

Donghun’s father removed a pouch from his belt, and opened the strings.

“This is a helix diamond.” From within the bag, he withdrew the single most beautiful, perfect stone Junhee had ever imagined. His breath left him as he stared – it was the size of a fist, its many facets catching the light that filled with glade from the Dokkebi’s magic. Donghun’s eyes narrowed.

“Helix diamonds… Like the ones that only form miles underground… in magma?”

“The very same.” His father’s lips twitched upwards. “These are the strongest object in our world. Regular diamonds, ixcorn horns… They all pale in comparison to the strength of these stones.” He placed the stone between them on a solid stand drawn from the pouch. “It’s an extremely rigid tetrahedral crystal. There’s no other material that can make a dent in it.”

“And so this forms some part of the Rite?” Donghun peered closer at the stone. “How’s this supposed to help me unlock my full magic?”

“You are impatient.”

Donghun scowled. “Got it from you.”

Both gold-freckled men looked at each other, and – despite his anxiety – Junhee couldn’t help but smile in amusement. They were both as stubborn as each other.

“The diamond can only be broken by magic. I want you to try and cleave the stone.”

Donghun blinked, and then turned his attention back to the helix diamond. His index finger twitched, and a flash of white energy sizzled through the air and lashed at the diamond.

It remained unmoved.

Donghun frowned. For a second time, he sent magic whipping towards the stone, stronger this time. Again, the stone didn’t appear to change whatsoever. The frustration on Donghun’s face deepened, and he raised a hand, sending lightning, flames, heat at the stone. Not a single scratch appeared.

“I can’t do it!” he growled, letting his hand fall to his lap.

“No. You cannot.” The Dokkebi shook his head. “This is because you need so much more than what you are currently drawing upon. If you want to understand your full reserve of strength, you must let me guide you to it.”

“…How?”

“You must let me through your barrier so I can guide you.” He watched as Donghun physically recoiled. “I will not hurt you. All Dokkebi experience this as part of their entry to adulthood. You are ready for the same.”

Donghun hesitated, a flash of nervousness passing his face for just a moment. Then, he nodded.

Junhee watched, heart thudding, as Donghun’s father placed his hands on Donghun’s temples. Both men closed their eyes. Steadily, a pulsing energy – like magic, only somehow different – began to lap through the clearing.

Neither of them moved.

Minutes ticked past in silence.

“How long will-” Yuchan began to whisper, but the emerald Dokkebi held up a finger to his lips.

Just when Junhee was starting to question if this was working at all, he heard a faint humming sound. Golden static began to pop around Donghun’s body. His chest began to heave with heavy breaths, sweat glistening on his forehead and arms.

The humming intensified.

Still neither father nor son moved.

It was as though they were meditating, but Junhee started to feel a wild surge from within the bubble of the clearing. He was always drawn subconsciously to the other half of his magical core inside Donghun, but it started to tug harder than ever before, as though magical power was firing up and down their connection. Junhee pressed his hands to the barrier, his own breath coming faster.

Sparks of light began to flash across Donghun’s skin, joining his freckles in fleeting constellations.

The humming built. Sweat poured down Donghun’s neck and chest. His hands trembled. Static crackled. His father’s hands tightened on his face.

Wind began to blow inside the barrier, forks of lightning snapping through the air. Junhee was reminded of the rare times Donghun had started to lose control of his magic – like when Yuchan had died and the entire weather system had responded to his grief and fury.

The sound reached a crescendo.

And then stopped.

Donghun’s eyes snapped open. They burned with gold light.

His father dropped his hands.

“Shatter it.”

Donghun growled, and raised one palm.

The diamond incinerated on the spot.

Junhee flinched back as the entire clearing was sprayed with infinitesimal shards of diamond dust.

Donghun’s hand was still outstretched, but he lowered it slowly. He looked around himself, still breathing heavily, and the crackling of static and wild loose magic faded to nothing. But he practically _glowed._ And his eyes… his _eyes_ , the way they glittered with golden starlight…

“Now, reform the diamond the way it was.”

Donghun’s eyes snapped back to his father. “What?”

“Breaking apart the helix diamond is the full Rite for young Dokkebi. But you are about to attempt something far beyond that of a normal Dokkebi’s life. True potential does not lie in strength, it lies in utilising _your_ strengths, making judgements, and understanding how to focus your abilities to achieve what you must achieve.”

Donghun paused, and then closed his eyes once more.

This time, there was no wild electricity, no thrumming sound – just a swell of dazzling magic that filtered through every breath of air in the glade.

And as one, the dust particles of diamond rose up from their places across the ground, until the entire airspace was glittering. They swept in a wide arc, sweeping back towards Donghun, until they twisted closer and closer together. Fractals of light danced across Donghun’s face as, eyes closed, he wound the specks back together into their impossibly intricate structure.

The light faded, and the diamond once again was whole.

For a second time, Donghun opened his eyes.

“Well done,” his father said, inclining his head. “You have done well, Donghun- _fae._ ”

It was the first time Junhee had heard Donghun’s father use his name.

“It was always there.” Donghun spoke quietly and slowly. “It was always inside… I just didn’t know how much.” He blinked at his father, his eyes shining with tears. “There’s so much more to me than I knew.”

“There still is.” His father got to his feet, holding out a hand to pull Donghun up. “You are meant for great things, my son. You were never meant to stay in these woods. Being cast out may have felt like a cruelty, but your place in this world lies outside of this place.”

Donghun nodded. “It’s time, isn’t it.”

There was no question in his sentence.

The barrier dropped as Donghun began to walk back towards the Lost Boys and other Dokkebi. The Dokkebi soundlessly drifted across the glade, once more disappearing into whatever place it was they went. Donghun met Junhee’s eyes, and didn’t stop walking until he could wrap his arms around Junhee’s waist and rest his head on his shoulder.

“Hey,” Junhee murmured, stroking his hair. It was still drenched with sweat. “Are you okay?”

Donghun nodded against him. “Little one… I can do this. What I had before… it was a fraction of what I have inside. I feel like a dam has been broken down and now there’s a _flood_.”

“I can feel it.” Junhee stroked his back, his body physically yearning for Donghun’s, now of all times. _Make us one again_ , their separate halves begged. _Let our skin touch and our mouths meet and let us be whole._

Byeongkwan cleared his throat delicately.

“So, are we ready to go beat down some Demons..?”

  


~

  


A cold wind swept through the mountains that rose above Neverland. Junhee’s teeth chattered, but he knew it was not just from the temperature.

Donghun walked at the front, his entire body like a kind of beacon. Junhee knew he wasn’t projecting light physically, but his magical aura was so vast it felt like a lantern in the night. The others were silent, hands already resting where daggers sat waiting, just in case.

Every cell in Junhee’s body did not want to be back here. The plain high into the mountainside where Kasper and his Demons had brought Donghun and Junhee. The place the illusions had tempted Donghun into accepting his magic once again. The place a Demon had taken a hold of Donghun, until he had begged Junhee to kill him.

He forced the images away. There would be more blood shed here tonight, and he had no time to focus on the past.

They came to a stop in the centre of the clearing. Donghun looked around, his hair tied back but strands of curls falling loose and whipping in the wind.

“Come out to play, you bastards!”

His voice echoed through the clearing, a mocking growl. Birds – so accustomed now to the peaceful darkness – rose with a flurry into the air.

They waited.

“What, are you scared of me?” Donghun’s longest knife slid from his belt with a metal chime, and he twirled it in a lazy circle. “Hiding up your _fucking_ mountain in the dark like some children’s ghost story?”

“Gosh, that mouth on you never gets any cleaner, does it?”

Their group whipped around, and every single hand went to a weapon.

“Oh would you look at that, looks like _you’re_ scared of _me_ …” Kasper chuckled, pushing back his white hair absently as he walked into the clearing, silver wings glinting in the moonlight. “Do you remember when tulips used to grow up here?” He sighed, stopping metres from the Lost Boys. “Your glory days faded with them, my dear Donghun. All flowers wilt in the end.”

“And all Demons go straight to hell,” Donghun spat.

Kasper let out a long, slow sigh. “You know, I’d leave the metaphors to me. You’re not all that poetic, are you?” Kasper’s eyes flicked up and down Donghun. “Our little leader is looking healthier than the last time I saw you. And would you just look at that…” He stepped closer, reaching out a hand and trailing his fingers down Amiri’s shoulder. “You know, you can tell yourself that you’ve got these two back, but they’re still _dead_.”

At the edge of the glade, six more figures loomed through the darkness. Junhee lowered his centre of gravity.

“You’re right.” Yuchan met Kasper’s eyes with a cool stare. “Unfortunately for you, that means we can’t die twice!”

Yuchan lunged for Kasper’s throat, sending a blast of magic before him-

-And all hell broke loose.

The Demons let out cries as they ran into the fray. Amiri and Yuchan leapt at Kasper, and the others drew their weapons, diving forward to attack the remaining creatures.

There was no time to think.

Junhee went into autopilot. It was different to the mock fights with the others, different even to the wraith attack, where had frozen to the spot. This _mattered_ , everything about this mattered. He had to do this. For Donghun.

The plan was a simple one, laid out by Donghun the night before. Yuchan and Amiri would fight Kasper – he was the strongest, and after all, they really couldn’t die twice. Their task was to keep him distracted. Byeongkwan, Sehyoon and Junhee would attack the other Demons. They were outnumbered, but had no other choice. And all of this would leave Donghun the chance to pick out one Demon at a time, and do what he had to do: force them to enter his body, and slaughter them one by one through purging them from his own core.

Junhee raised his blade to slash against a Demon’s knife, sending the first sparks flying.

Drawing on his well of magic like he had been taught, he kept a barrier close to his body. It wasn’t easy to keep it in place at the same time as fighting – but adrenaline pushed him beyond his limits.

He kept close to Byeongkwan, both of them working to fight off three of the six Demons clustered away from their leader. They didn’t need to kill them – they couldn’t, because if they did, their souls would escape. They just had to fight, and hope Donghun worked fast.

Slash, parry, block, duck… Junhee raised a hand and sent a blast of cold air firing across the clearing.

Donghun fell from the skies on his wings and landed on a Demon’s shoulders, flooring it. It was in the form of a Siren – long wet hair hanging down over bare shoulders. He slammed his hands against its chest and a huge flare of magic swept out. The Siren screamed, shifting and dissolving on the floor. Junhee staggered back, casting a desperate glance at Donghun. The very ether of the Siren was wrenched into Donghun’s chest, pouring itself into his being as his wings took on that mottled blackness he had seen once before.

But this time the Demon did not take control. Donghun staggered to his feet, breathing hard. Darkness seeped slowly over his skin. His hand glowed on his chest. With a growl, he began to pull, his arm shaking with effort. A piercing shriek split through the clearing as black matter was wrenched from inside Donghun – the Demon’s true form stretching and shattering as he extracted it into its final death.

And then the Demon was no more.

Junhee’s heart leapt even as he turned back to defend a massive blow from a huge ink-skinned creature, his knees threatening to buckle as he forced the opposing blade back.

Across the clearing, Donghun claimed his next victim, forcing down one of the big creatures with a funnel of fire and a spinning kick to the face. He gripped its throat and snarled-

-And Junhee couldn’t stop to watch anymore. A blast of magic Kasper threw at Amiri missed, but instead sent Junhee flying off his feet. He gasped as his face connected with the floor, stars bursting across his eyes and metallic tang filling his mouth. He rolled over, dazed, to find a siren raising twin blades over him-

And kept raising, and kept raising, until the Siren was writhing in the air, twisting for her freedom. Below, Sehyoon held out one hand, tendrils of white magic filtering out from his palm. He slashed his arm to one side and sent the Siren flying across the clearing and crashing to the floor.

“Thanks,” Junhee gasped as Sehyoon hauled him back to his feet.

Another piercing shriek made every one of them flinch – Donghun was purging his second Demon. It practically simmered the air, so loud and feral Junhee had to fight every instinct not to drop his weapon and clamp his hands over his ears.

The fight should have grown easier with two Demons down. With Yuchan and Amiri relentlessly assaulting Kasper, there were only four Demons left between Junhee, Sehyoon and Byeongkwan. But Junhee’s muscles began to ache, and he saw sweat rivulets pouring down the chests of the others.

But they couldn’t tire. Not yet.

He soon realised, however, it was not himself he needed to worry about.

His faction were fighting the four Demons, Yuchan and Amiri fighting Kasper… When he could steal a glance, he found Donghun stood back, knelt on one knee, his chest heaving. His magic still burned like a light but Junhee felt a jolt of fear as he instantly sensed it weakening. As Byeongkwan sent all four Demons sprawling, the blue-winged phaerie noticed too.

“Hun! You okay?”

Donghun looked up, his face pale. “Yeah,” he said, flashing a wobbly smile. “’Course.”

Junhee lost track of how long they fought. A deep ache set into his arms, sweat dripping into his eyes and turning his lips salty.

Donghun sank a knife into the stomach of one of the Demons, hauling it close and beginning the process once more.

Time felt like it slowed to a crawl; the cruelty of battle stretched out into endless heavy breathing, and knives slashing, and limbs aching.

The third Demon let out its death cry, and the forth followed soon after. Now only Kasper and two other Demons remained, and Junhee, Byeongkwan and Sehyoon worked as a team, two stepping forwards as a third caught his breath. Junhee staggered back as Byeongkwan took his place, letting his arms fall to his side as he heaved for air.

He spun as he heard retching.

Donghun was down on all fours as he vomited onto the ground, his hair half escaped from its tie and sticking lank to his face. Junhee knew he couldn’t stop for long, but he ran to his side.

“Donghun? Donghun, are you okay?”

“I can do this…” Donghun spat once, dragging his hand across his lips. All colour had been bleached from his face. “I can do this…”

“Donghun if you can’t carry on-”

“I have to!” The golden phaerie staggered upright, using Junhee’s shoulder as support. “They won’t let us run now. We kill them all, or they hunt us down. It’s now or never.” His burning eyes fixed back on the fighting. “I can do it.”

Junhee lurched after him as he returned to the fray.

The fifth Demon took twice as long. It struggled against Donghun, howling and thrashing as he sucked it into his own body. The black mottle spread further over his skin and wings this time, and for one heart-stopping moment Junhee through he saw blackness flash in Donghun’s golden eyes. But his hand clamped to his chest, and the black mass began to purge out, and the screaming began.

On, and on, and on.

Junhee tripped, a blade passing through his weakened barrier and nicking his upper arm. Blood bloomed on his skin, but he paid it no heed, forcing himself to retaliate. He jumped onto his wings to gain a height advantage and sent magic blasting at the remaining Demon in his sights. It was weak, and barely sent the Demon stumbling.

But it was weakened too. So much so that when Donghun stumbled over to fight it, it wasn’t even paying attention to the knife that came striking at its thigh.

It howled in pain and anger.

Donghun threw up his hands to take its clothes and yank it close, but the Demon batted up one huge muscular arm and caught Donghun’s chin on an upthrust. He staggered back with a groan, and the Demon whipped a blade around.

It sliced a red line across Donghun’s cheek, blood spraying across the ground below.

“Donghun!” Byeongkwan and Sehyoon were immediately there, throwing themselves between the Demon and their leader. Donghun fell back onto the floor. Blood trickled down his face – the wound wasn’t deep, but his breath rasped, chest rising and falling in great heaving motions.

Junhee wanted to stop him. He wanted to lift him and take him far away. He wanted this to _stop._

But he couldn’t. All he could do was slip his hands under Donghun’s arms and help drag him back to his feet.

With Byeongkwan and Sehyoon’s help, his hands closed around the Demon’s throat.

The three boys stood back, gasping for breath and watching as Donghun wrenched the Demon into himself, inch by agonising inch.

Junhee let out a cry of pain as Donghun’s eyes shut, tears leaking between his lashes as his body trembled with the effort of fighting the Demon within. The black stain spread, turning his chin and bottom lip dark, meeting the blood that trickled down his cheek.

“You can do this.” Junhee knew he shouldn’t interfere, but he held Donghun’s waist, looking desperately into his face. “You can do this, Donghun- _fae_ , please…”

Donghun’s eyes snapped open at his name. For an instant, they were black as pitch, a deep abyss that turned Junhee’s blood to ice. But the gold shone through them again, and Donghun raised a quivering hand.

Junhee let go, and for the sixth time, Donghun extracted the darkness within.

Donghun stumbled as he killed it, lips parted as he fought for breath. He spat on the ground, something dark mixed with his spit, and his hazy eyes found Kasper.

Amiri and Yuchan were exhausted. Anyone could see that – Junhee didn’t know how Sprites functioned, whether they suffered the same physical exhaustion he did, but he could see their stumbling and missed slashes as good as any. Kasper was bloodied – great streaks of red dying his hair and clothes, just like he had appeared in Junhee’s dream weeks ago.

But in that dream, Kasper had been begging for help. This Kasper, this false phaerie, staggered back and raised his lips in a deadly smile.

“So you finally accepted who you really are, darling?” Kasper stepped back, his eyes burning into Donghun’s. “Finally stopped wasting your life in your little treehouse and decided to accept the _ugly_ side of your lineage?”

“It’s over, Demon.” Donghun shook his head, sweat falling from the ends of his hair. “The others are dead. Your time is up.”

Kasper stepped forward, and Amiri made a grab for his arm. Kasper sent him back with a snarl. “This is between me and him!”

The others’ eyes shot to Donghun. He nodded once, his jaw set.

They all stepped back. Junhee’s heart beat with fear. The Demon that took on this form as Kasper, the same one that had impersonated Captain Hongjoong, it was the strongest of them all. A huge magical power, strengthened by the blood stolen first from Amiri, then from Junhee. Empowered by the multiple forms it had taken over the years. Capable of halting the sunrise, of changing the world.

Donghun slowly raised his dagger.

And this, their golden star. The one with a well of magic so deep it was beyond comprehension – equally as capable of changing the very world around them. Weather systems altered to mirror his emotions, flowers leaned in to listen to his voice. Far beyond the strength of any phaerie, far beyond the courage of any dokkebi.

The very colours of the wind changed as both creatures leaped for each other.

The Lost Boys were each thrown backwards as magic erupted in the centre of the clearing. Junhee threw himself onto his knees, staring as Donghun and Kasper’s blades whirled faster than the eye could follow. Steel chimed, magic hummed, static crackled, in a song so murderously melodic it was as though the world itself had turned its head to listen.

Fire, water, lightning, air. Every atom around the fight was charged. They leaped from ground to the air and back again, wings straining as they span in a dance where only one partner could reach curtain call. Flecks of blood sprayed like raindrops as blades caught skin, but neither relented to the fight.

Donghun threw up both daggers in his hands to form a cross to catch Kasper’s. Kasper gave a great shove, sending Donghun back just a step. Donghun crouched and leapt into the air to retaliate – and leapt right into Kasper’s great blast of magic.

Donghun span through the air and hit the ground with a smack.

He rolled once, both daggers leaving his hands and clattering to the floor.

Kasper stepped over him. In the eyes of any mortal creature, there may have been a hint of hesitation. A moment’s pause. The slightest, faintest trace of remorse.

But Kasper spared no moment for Donghun as he lay on the ground, looking up defenceless.

Kasper raised his longest dagger.

With a snarl, it lanced down to its target.

“ _No!_ ”

A flash of sparks sprayed white and gold as Junhee’s blade met Kasper’s. With all the strength in his body he pushed the blade away.

A third blade whipped down through the air, and cut Kasper’s hand straight from his arm.

Junhee dropped his own blade in shock as Kasper reeled back with a howl. Sehyoon’s face was drawn into a snarl, holding his thin, curved weapon with both hands.

“That’s for Yuchan, you fucking bitch.”

Junhee flinched as a blade sunk into Kasper’s shoulder.

Byeongkwan glowered. “And that’s for Amiri, too.”

Yuchan and Amiri were behind Donghun, hands under his arms as they lifted him to his feet. Their steadying support didn’t leave him.

“ _Now_!”

Donghun’s hands latched to Kasper’s shoulders. The false phaerie screamed as his edged blurred, form twisting and fading and liquidising into a steady stream that funnelled into Donghun’s chest.

Donghun choked, his hand going up to his throat.

Then his fingers started squeezing.

“Stop him!”

The Lost Boys grabbed Donghun’s arms, forcing his fingers away from his airways. Donghun’s eyes stared out unseeing, his lips parted as a cry of agony escaped his throat. Black and gold swirled across his skin. His hand pulled free of Amiri’s restraint, and slammed against his chest.

The scream was the colour of night.

It rang, and rang, and rang, as the first inches of that dark form ripped away from Donghun’s chest.

Donghun’s eyes closed, his head tilted back.

He let out an unholy cry, tears streaking down his face as his entire body wracked with tremors.

His magic surged, and waned, and surged again.

Inch.

By inch.

By inch.

And for one fleeting moment, the dark ether formed a shape. Eyes black as ink, sunken cheeks, fangs drawn back in its death cry.

And then it was gone.

The blackness was no more.

Silence.

Gradually, the darkness faded from Donghun’s skin, freckles returning. He didn’t open his eyes, breathing hard.

“Is it over?” Yuchan’s voice trembled with exhaustion and fear. “Are they dead?”

“They’re dead.” Byeongkwan looked between them, his eyes wide. “They’re dead!”

And then they all burst out with exclamations at once.

Junhee stood, breathless and stunned, as Yuchan jumped on his back. He smiled, dizzy, disbelieving. The Demons… dead?! Dead! No more threat, no more night, no more fear…

Oh god, the _fear_. He felt it physically roll off his shoulders, the heaviness of uncertainty evaporating and leaving him weightless. They had done it, _he_ had done it, and Donghun, _Donghun…_

He escaped Yuchan and grabbed Donghun’s shoulders. “Hun!”

Donghun’s knees buckled on the spot.

“Donghun!” They caught him as he crumbled, steadying him as he fell to his back. His breath rasped in his throat.

“Hun, you did it! You actually killed them, you beautiful bastard!” Byeongkwan’s eyes shone. “You saved us! Neverland! _Everything_!”

Junhee felt it first.

Away from the adrenaline of battle, away from the screaming and the blood and the aching, he felt it.

Where was the pull of Donghun’s core?

He searched for it with his sixth sense, desperate. Byeongkwan and Sehyoon he could feel, even Yuchan and Amiri’s strange, Spritely existences. But that glorious beacon that had only grown brighter since the Rite – why couldn’t he feel it?

“Donghun?” Junhee leaned over him, cupping his face as Donghun opened his eyes.

Gold and unfocussed, they found Junhee’s.

He smiled… just as his wings began to fade.

“No, _no!_ ” Junhee scrabbled over him, lurching to touch his wings. There was a huge gash in one of them where a cruel blade had slit through the golden sinews. But it was their light. Their golden glow began to dim, like a sun sinking below the horizon.

“Hun? Hun, what’s happening?” Yuchan stared at his older brother, and then at the others. “No, you’re alright! It’s alright!”

Junhee couldn’t hear them. He leaned over Donghun, pushing bloodied hair back from his face.

“Donghun… Donghun, please, talk to me?”

Again, Donghun’s eyes struggled to find his. The faintest smile touched his lips.

“It’s okay, little one…” he croaked. “It’s okay.”

“What’s okay? You’re okay?”

Ever so slightly, Donghun shook his head.

The light in his wings dimmed further, until only an outline was left.

“ _Donghun_!”

“It’s okay.” He smiled up at Junhee, blood trickling down his cheek. “I finally did it. I finally lived up to my potential. And I saved you.” He let out a long, rasping breath. “And that’s all that matters.”

For the first time in two years, the sky began to lighten.

As the first rays of sunlight broke free from the horizon, Donghun closed his eyes.

His wings disappeared, and the last of his light faded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...
> 
> Here we are. I hope you don't mind the delay in posting; I hope you now see that I didn't want to drop this Angst Bomb on you during the cheerful holiday time! So I went ahead with giving you some soft wholesomeness with Something New, and waited to pull the trigger on this one...
> 
> One chapter to go and we conclude our second Neverlandian adventure. See you there.
> 
> With love,  
> The Indigo Dragonfly


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In an epic battle, The Lost Boys finally took on the Demons - for once and for all. Donghun fought through every pain barrier to kill them one by one, but in their moment of victory, he collapsed to the ground. Junhee kneeled over him as he took his final breath...

Junhee didn’t move.

The pounding thud of his own heart. The rasp of his breath. It was all he could hear.

“Donghun?”

His voice was high and broken. Not his own.

“Donghun?” he repeated. “Hun? Hun?”

Beneath him, Donghun’s form lay still. Junhee called his name, again and again. Why wouldn’t he open his eyes? Why wouldn’t he say something..?

“Please, Donghun…” he begged, taking his shoulders and shaking his limp form.

Firm hands took Junhee’s waist and pulled him back.

“Junhee…” Junhee struggled against Byeongkwan’s hold. “Junhee, I’m so sorry, he’s gone…”

“ _No, no, no_!”

Junhee wrenched himself free and fell back over Donghun, clutching his loved one’s face. Donghun’s freckles no longer shone gold. His eyes were closed. Breath no longer passed his lips, his chest no longer rose and fell.

Junhee let out a howl of agony coloured with the sound of his heart shattering.

“Junhee-”

Multiple hands touched him and then disappeared.

His cries ripped from his throat, scolding him like liquid pain. He pushed back Donghun’s hair with trembling hands, still damp with dark blood. His handsome face was free from the scowls of indignation, the crinkles of his smiles – all smoothed out by the veil of death.

“Bring him back!” Junhee sobbed, clutching Donghun’s shirt with both fists and looking up wildly for Yuchan and Amiri. “Make him a Sprite, bring him back!”

“Junhee, we… we can’t.” Yuchan’s face was stained with tears. “It doesn’t work like that…”

And Junhee crumbled, pressing his forehead to Donghun’s, squeezing his eyes shut and letting pain consume him whole.

Gone.

Gone, gone, forever gone.

No more smiles. No more arms around his waist. No more _little one._

All of the world’s light and happiness had been pulled away, instantly, with Donghun’s passing. It left a vacuum of grief and darkness. Junhee couldn’t form thoughts, couldn’t move – all he could do was scream, and cry, and wish death would come for him too.

What was left for him here without Donghun?

A lance like a thousand flame-heated pokers struck his chest, as the weight of every hope for his future fell and shattered. It slammed into him as he realised all the things he had never truly acknowledged that he wanted.

He wanted to have children with him, wanted to start a family in whatever form that took.

He wanted to grow old with him.

He wanted Donghun to be there, always, at his side.

How cruel it was to realise those things with piercing clarity now, when it was too late.

Watery golden light began to creep over the horizon with the rising sun, but Junhee’s heart was consumed by black.

He sat back, cheeks soaked with tears and smeared in Donghun’s blood, looking down into his face. He looked peaceful. Where did Neverlandian creatures go when they died?

“I love you.” Tears fell from Junhee’s chin and splashed onto Donghun’s clothes. “I’ll always love you…”

The violence of his pain crystalised with shock, and he just stared at Donghun, unable to believe what was happening. He would open his eyes. He would take a breath. He would tut and tell them all to stop fussing, and make a joke about how he was so much stronger than all of them.

He always had been. And he’d never been stronger than today.

This time, when someone prised him away, Junhee didn’t have the strength to fight. He leaned his head against Sehyoon’s chest, and stared emptily as tears ran silently down his face.

There was a stillness, and shock, the sort that can only be brought on by loss.

“We… We should…” Byeongkwan started, but he trailed off.

Junhee looked up from Sehyoon’s embrace, to see whether it was tears that had made him falter. Instead, he found Byeongkwan frozen and staring. Junhee followed his gaze.

Up here in the mountains, the terrain was rocky. Around them, a single white crocus sprouted up, its delicate petals reaching sunward in defiance to the tough landscape in which it grew. As they watched, a faint gold thread curled from the centre of the petals. It arced gently, shimmering and glittering as it trailed through the air, growing and growing until it reached Donghun’s chest. It shone, a string of the finest lace connecting the flower to their fallen friend.

“What’s it doing..?” Amiri murmured, his voice still thick with sorrow.

Around the clearing, identical gold threads began to rise into the air. From crocuses, from primroses, from forget-me-nots, from orchids. Each released a delicate line that shimmered across the clearing and disappeared against Donghun’s skin.

“Are they taking his body?” Yuchan whispered.

Byeongkwan stood, walking to the edge of the clearing. He stopped, wind blowing in his air, as he looked out over the sunrise of Neverland.

“No,” he breathed. “They’re trying to save him.”

Junhee stared. And then, as one with the others, he got to his feet and joined Byeongkwan.

One by one, the flowers at their feet released their strand of golden light – no, their strand of _magic._ The air filled with their light, and as it did, flowers further down the mountain joined. Like the slow wash of a sunrise bathing the world in its glow, the flowers of Neverland lit up with gold, casting their magic towards the mountaintop. Tiny threads joined like streams into glorious rivers of gold, winding and flowing across the land until the entire world danced in their resplendence.

“All the magic he sung into them over the years,” Sehyoon croaked, dazzling glitter reflected in his eyes. “They know. They _remember_.”

Every single blossom raised its petals, feeding magic into the blanket of gold. Birds sang out their delight, arcing through the air with the warmth of the new sun on their feathers. Creatures across the land stilled, turning their eyes towards the mountain, where a million threads reached their focus. The sun rose higher, as though even it wanted to cast a golden ray to join those flowing through the air.

Junhee knew in all his years alive, he would never see anything as beautiful as this.

It faded slowly, leaving nothing but stars in their eyes.

The final glow surrounded Donghun, his form imperceptible through the seethe of glittering magic.

It faded to one thin thread, and then the single white crocus let go.

Donghun’s eyes fluttered open.

He sat up slowly, his golden wings draped on the ground behind him. His freckles shone; and the blood on his face, the sweat dried into his hair, the gash in his wing – gone.

He looked up, and his gold eyes found Junhee’s.

“Little one?”

All at once, disbelief, relief, shock – it buckled Junhee’s knees as he fell down next to Donghun, wrapping his arms around his neck.

“Hey!” Donghun stroked his back as Junhee racked with sobs. “It’s okay…”

“It isn’t okay!” Junhee pulled back, trembling from head to toe. “You were dead, I thought I’d lost you… I thought… I thought…”

His tears overwhelmed him, and then the others were there – shaking and touching Donghun and trying to convince themselves that he was real. He was _alive_.

“Hun,” Byeongkwan choked. “The flowers, they saved you, your magic depleted to nothing but they all sent magic to you and… and…”

“They did?” Donghun glanced over at the white crocus, an eyebrow raised. “Huh. They’ve been saying they owed me one for a while now. It’s about bloody time.”

Junhee sat back, staring at him. He had _died_ , died in his arms, been brought back to life through some _miracle_ , and he was making stupid jokes about the flowers owing him a _favour?_

Junhee pulled him roughly by his shirt and kissed him hard.

The two halves of their whole rejoiced, connected once more.

“I…” Donghun managed as Junhee finally released him. “Wow. Maybe I should die more often.”

“Don’t even _joke_ about it,” Junhee hissed, but he couldn’t stop smiling, couldn’t stop holding him.

“We did it, didn’t we?” Donghun looked across the clearing, up at the paling sky and rising sun. His eyes grew soft. “They’re dead?”

“All of them.” Byeongkwan crouched next to him. “ _You_ did it.”

Donghun shook his head. “I’m nothing without all of you.” He met each of their eyes in turn, smiling as he met Amiri’s. “ _We_ did it.”

Some of that earlier elation from their victory returned to Junhee’s chest, and he stood up and held out a hand to Donghun. He kept their fingers firmly locked together.

“The dawn…” Donghun’s eyes reflected the ribbons of pink and blue breaking on the horizon. “No more darkness.”

“No more casting lights every time we wake up.” Byeongkwan’s tone was jokey, but his shoulders sagged with visible relief. “Bet you two have forgotten what daylight looks like-”

He stopped.

They all turned to Amiri and Yuchan, who looked at each other with a smile.

Glitter danced across their bodies like fireworks, as they began to fade away.

“Yuchan? Amiri?” Donghun stepped forward, holding out one hand. “Are you okay?!”

“I’m more than okay.” Yuchan smiled, stepping closer to his oldest friend. “It’s time.”

None of them asked what he meant. They all knew.

A hard lump formed in Junhee’s throat.

“We found our peace. Both of us.” Amiri’s voice was filled with _such_ serenity that Junhee’s entire body flooded with warmth, like the feeling of climbing into bed after an exhausting day. “The sense of things unfinished that kept us holding on…” He let out a sigh, his face the picture of calm. “It’s gone.”

“I…” Donghun stopped, his eyes filling up. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I know.” Yuchan took his hands, still smiling. “Nor do any of the living want to let go of those whose time has come. But we’ll be together again. I promise.”

Yuchan pulled Donghun into a hug, cradling his head.

“I love you all so much.” He embraced them all in turn, and then Amiri did the same. He stopped at Donghun, and Donghun’s lip wobbled.

“Thank you for being in my life.” Donghun took Amiri’s hands. “I’ll make you proud.”

Amiri smiled, and kissed him on the cheek softly. “You already have.”

Both Sprites stepped back, their forms shimmering and shifting. They smiled.

“We’ll see you on the flower road,” Yuchan said.

“The flower road?” Donghun looked between them. “Wait, what do you mean? What’s the flower road?!”

Yuchan and Amiri exchanged an amused glance.

“You’ll see when you get here,” Yuchan said with a wink. “Take your time.”

Still smiling, Amiri and Yuchan held hands, and with a single step forward, faded out into the beyond.

A bird chirped in a nearby tree, and the boys stood quietly. Over Neverland, the dawn of a new day finally came.

“They’re going to be okay, aren’t they.” Byeongkwan didn’t say it as a question.

“They are,” Donghun replied.

The sun continued its climb as they all turned for home, and through the daybreak, the bird sang on.

~

Days passed – as days. The sun rose in the morning, the birds sang at the sunlight, the evening fell in glorious skyscapes of blush pink and gold, and then the three moons rose among their meadow of twinkling stars.

Junhee hadn’t realised what a simple pleasure the cycle of the day could be.

As they had returned from the mountain after the fight, they had all pulled off their bloodied, dusty clothes and slipped into the lake besides the house. Barely a word had been spoken as suddenly, a crashing exhaustion sunk through them all and they quietly washed the last of the fear and anxiety from their hair. Once clean, they had all simply collapsed into bed and slept, for hours and hours and hours.

And then came days of rest. Junhee had almost forgotten what it was like to spend days without rigid flying practice, and sparring, and magic lessons. The Lost Boys woke late, ate a leisurely breakfast, and then spent the days lounging, and swimming, and eating, and singing to the flowers that were oh-so-happy to be reunited with daylight. And at times, they simply sat in sun, basking in its warmth.

On the fifth day, Junhee was doing just that. He had gone for a walk down through the grass, out to one of the other pools of water, and swam for ages. Now he sat shirtless on the lakeside, his purple wings dripping as warm sunlight shone down on his chest. His eyes drifted shut. It felt so nice.

“Do you mind some company?”

Junhee peeled open one eye, and lifted one side of his lips in a small smile. “Never when it’s you.”

Donghun padded through the long grass and sat down beside him, planting a lingering kiss on his shoulder before resting his head there. Junhee leaned his cheek against his soft hair, closing his eyes and returning to his photosynthesis.

This was even _nicer._ Everything had been so… intense, since coming to Neverland again. Intense fear, intense conversations – even their relationship had felt intense. Intense emotions, intense changes, intense sex… Now things felt easy, and quiet, and soft.

“You smell like sunshine,” Donghun murmured, and they both sat up, opening their eyes.

“I’ll never take it for granted again,” Junhee agreed, blowing a bright blue insect from his knee. He felt its tiny magical core flutter away as it lifted onto its wings to fly over the lake. “These last few days have been bliss.”

“Well-earned bliss.” Donghun dipped his toes into the water and made little ripples. “I think you earn a week off when you nearly die.”

Junhee’s chest tightened. No matter how much relief was washing through his system, he still hadn’t fully processed what had happened up on that mountain. How close he’d come to…

“I love you,” he said, and he heard the tightness in his own throat.

“I love you too.” Donghun turned to him, his eyes quizzical. “Hey…”

“No, I’m… I’m fine.” Junhee looked into his face, gold freckles sparkling in the light, his nose and cheeks already turning bronze once more from the sun. “It was just… the worst moment of my life.” He smiled apologetically, and Donghun’s eyes grew round with sadness. “Your wings disappeared, and I knew what that meant. After watching Channie fade, I knew that it was different to just losing your magic in my world. Losing them here was a sign of losing _you_ , and… and…” He swallowed hard. “I just instantly wanted to go with you. I didn’t want to live anymore. Not without you. And I’ve never felt that feeling before. It… wasn’t very nice.”

“Little one…” Donghun slipped an arm around him and kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. But I’m here now. I’m alive and kicking.”

“I know.” Junhee rested his forehead against Donghun’s. “And I’m going to be grateful for that every day of my life.”

Donghun smiled. “You know-”

But his words were cut short. They heard a rustling from behind, and both turned their heads, assuming it was Sehyoon or Byeongkwan.

They were both on their feet within seconds.

“ _You_!” Donghun had a knife in his hand faster than Junhee could blink.

But it wavered.

Kasper’s eyes were fixed on them. His breathing drew in ragged and noisy past chapped lips, his white hair tangled and falling loosely around his face. His clothes were stained in dark blood, the colour of wounds that bleed, seal and reopen just to bleed again. But worst of all, his satin silver wings were completely shredded. Not just like the gash Donghun had taken in one of his on the mountain top, but torn at until loose strands fluttered on the breeze.

“Please don’t hurt me.” His voice rasped, raw and broken, and he held out a trembling hand. The other arm remaining clutching at his abdomen. It was a familiar voice – the one they had heard scorning and scoffing and threatening – but this one was somehow younger, and filled only with fright.

“Kasper?” Donghun’s voice was level, and Junhee realised with a pang what was happening, even before Kasper spoke.

“You’re the ones… You killed the creatures who pretended to be me.”

And his knees buckled. Without another question, Donghun dropped his knife and ran to his side.

“You’re the real Kasper, aren’t you?”

Kasper’s foggy eyes found Donghun’s, sagging against the arms he put around him to prop him up. “I promise… I’m real. They… They held me captive, and they hurt me… I can’t… I managed to break free once you killed them but I… I… Please help me… Just getting here was…”

They never heard the end of his sentence. As though he truly had poured the last of his strength and fight into getting to someone who could help, he collapsed, his eyes fluttering shut.

“We need to get him back. Now!”

Donghun lifted Kasper easily into his arms. The silver phaerie was extremely slender, arms and legs so delicate it was like he was a fairy from a child’s picture book. Junhee’s heart thudded, stomach turning at the sight of his broken wings.

Donghun jumped into the air and Junhee followed. At the house, Donghun landed back down onto the ground already at a run; Junhee tried to copy and stumbled hard. He found his balance and followed inside.

“Oh skies _above_ …” Byeongkwan dropped the quill he was writing with as they entered. He stared in horror at the bloodied phaerie in Donghun’s arms, but Sehyoon immediately sprang into action.

“Get him down on the bed. Kwan, fetch the jar of Osmanthus. Junhee, get me bluebells. There’s a patch behind the house. Bring an armful.”

None of them questioned Sehyoon – he was by far the most gifted healer. Junhee turned on his heel and ran from the house again, his eyes searching frantically for bluebells. He found the spray of blue-purple blooms under one tree, and began to tear up handfuls. When he could carry no more, he ran back to the house.

“Bluebells!” he gasped, skittering to a stop in front of the bed where Kasper had been laid down. Sehyoon took them, snapping the heads off and tipping them into a pestle and mortar. Kasper’s shirt had been cut off and already a floral poultice had been applied to the worst wound on his stomach.

“Is he going to be okay?” Junhee hovered in the doorway, watching Sehyoon work. Their own silver-haired phaerie looked remarkably calm.

“I have every reason to believe so. This isn’t our first time treating stab wounds, you know.” Sehyoon flashed a smile at Junhee, and he remembered lying in this room years ago, Sehyoon tending to him as he woke up in Neverland for the first time. “I’ve given him a very strong sedative though. It’s likely he’ll be out for some time while his body recovers.”

Junhee nodded, feeling a little tension leave his shoulders.

Eventually, he came to realise there was nothing more he could do without being a hinderance, and he returned to the main room of the house, where Donghun and Byeongkwan were brewing an earthy-smelling tea. Heart still thudding from adrenaline, he reluctantly took a seat at the table. There was nothing else he could do.

“Never a dull day in Neverland,” Donghun commented, handing Junhee a steaming cup.

Junhee shook his head slowly, eyes dazed. “You can say that again.”

~

Sehyoon had been right: the sedative _did_ keep Kasper knocked out. Three days passed, and the silver phaerie didn’t stir, his hands crossed peacefully on his stomach and his chest rising and falling with each breath. But remarkably, the healing process had started to take place before their very eyes. Junhee checked in with fascination as a combination of Kasper’s magic and the medicinal flowers began to knit his wounds, dull his bruises, and gradually stitch his wings back together like the most complex crochet.

It could be a week or two before he fully roused, Sehyoon told them. And until then, they would all have to bristle with curiosity about this new phaerie, and exactly how he had come to be in the predicament he was in.

Now, some other concern hung over their heads. Or less of a concern, more of a question…

The sun rose and fell. The world was at peace again. And now, Donghun and Junhee had to say goodbye to Neverland again. It was just a matter of time.

But for now, a few extra days wouldn’t hurt. Junhee had fallen back into his peaceful routine, and was settled down for the night reading a book from the collection the Lost Boys had ‘borrowed’ during their trips to the human world for seeds, when Donghun came bursting into the room and made him jump.

“Junhee! Junhee, you gotta come!”

He bounded over, his eyes dancing as he jumped up and down on the balls of his feet. Junhee raised an eyebrow with a smile; he hadn’t seen him this lit up in a while.

“What’s going on?” he asked, placing down his book and taking Donghun’s hand.

“You’ve got to come and see, I want to show you!”

Junhee followed him from the house, forgoing shoes – and took off onto his wings as Donghun led the way.

Night was a velvet blanket, but the moonlight lapped at the land like molten silver. Junhee flew just behind Donghun, trying to keep up with the speed he flew at…

Then, he saw it.

At first, it was just a vast glow, settled low over the meadow. The conditions here meant the wildflowers grew in multihued abundance, and for a second Junhee wondered if they were somehow releasing magic into the air? But as they grew closer, his eyes widened.

Donghun came down gently to his feet, his wings tucking prettily behind him. He was still smiling wide as he turned to Junhee, waiting for his reaction.

“It’s… It’s…”

But no matter how Junhee searched and searched, he couldn’t find any words that sufficed.

It wasn’t one glow. Over the field of poppies and cornflowers, thousands of fireflies rose up, twinkling their tiny lights of gold and bronze. The entire field lit up in their radiance as though alight with golden fire. They swirled, all at once one beating heart and a million separate souls.

“They’re called incendia bugs,” Donghun said. The fireflies’ light sparkled in his eyes. “They only come together like this once every ten years or so. We don’t know why, but… Isn’t it beautiful?”

Junhee, not trusting his voice, nodded.

And then, in all the beauty, and awe, and magic, Donghun giggled. A pure, happy sound of joy that broke from his chest as he started to run, barefoot, down the meadow. Junhee’s heart leaped in his chest, and then he stepped forward to follow.

Donghun’s wings streamed out behind him as he ran, still laughing, into the cloud of fireflies.

Junhee’s breath caught in his throat as he too passed through into that enormous swirl of light.

All around him, the creatures _danced_.

Sparkling, glittering, glorious lights, each one a pinprick star in an eddying galaxy. The air between them glowed like warm amber, the whole world shimmering in their ritual.

As Donghun turned back to look at him, his entire face was crinkled in a smile. Light twinkled across his freckles, glinting off that little slice of gold on his bottom lip; it sent his wings glimmering like crystal caramel. His wild hair bounced around his ears, as he stood, golden and laughing in the centre of this natural masterpiece, and still the most beautiful creature of all.

Junhee’s eyes welled up, and the truth that had been hiding in his heart came out.

“I want to stay.”

Donghun’s smile faltered as surprise took its place. “What?”

“Here. In Neverland. I want to stay.”

Junhee hadn’t even let himself think it. He hadn’t dwelled on it. But here, in this moment, with Donghun…

How could he ever think about leaving?

It had been hiding inside all along, hadn’t it? It had been in the way he had so quickly forgotten about home, and in the way he had pushed away thoughts of having to go back. It had been in simple breakfasts with their friends, and in learning how to use magic, and in the exhilaration of falling from his new wings into a warm ocean.

“Little one, are you sure?”

“I am.” A tear slid down Junhee’s cheek as Donghun came close, his hands finding Junhee’s waist as the fireflies danced around them. “Donghun, before we got brought here again, you said it yourself – life changed for me back home when you came to live with me. But it wasn’t just about you, and having to come home a lot for you.” Another tear. “My family pushed me away because of my sexuality. And my friends… we drifted, and it’s not like they put up much of a fight. I’m not blaming them, because I _did_ contact them less too, but I… I don’t think I ever really had close friends. Not really.

“And then we have here. And not only do we have each other, but we have Byeongkwan and Sehyoon – and who knows, maybe even Kasper?” He laughed tearfully. “And most importantly, it’s where _you_ belong. It’s where we can both be _this_ version of ourselves-” He spread his own wings. “Every day with you here… It’s _magical_. And I don’t want to go a day without it.”

Donghun’s eyes shone with light and love, and he pressed a firm kiss into Junhee’s lips.

“I love you so much,” he murmured, stroking back a strand of Junhee’s hair. “Are you sure? You’re not just doing this for me?” Junhee shook his head. “And you… you’re really okay with leaving behind your family?”

“They already left me behind.” Junhee swallowed the lump in his throat. “Long before you… They wouldn’t accept me for who I am, for who I _love_. That’s not family.” He looked down, unable to stop tears dropping from his lash line. “I always dreamed of finding a family of my own. A group of people whose love I could trust, who I could count on, and who knew every part of me and loved me for it. And you, and Byeongkwan and Sehyoon – and Yuchan and Amiri – are my… my found family.”

Donghun just pulled him close, and held him tight.

Around them, a thousand flecks of fire swayed and flickered, like this was their galaxy – a place where no one else could touch them.

“Then we’ll stay.” Donghun pulled back only far enough to rest their foreheads together. “I’ll look after you here. Always. I promise.”

The magical well inside Junhee swelled as Donghun kissed him, its energy ebbing and flowing in time with the way their lips moved against one another’s. Donghun’s hands curled around Junhee’s hips, and he let his body go pliant, pulled against Donghun’s until their forms pressed together.

Back in those first days he had arrived in Neverland, Junhee had felt drunk on the powerful magic that permeated the air. He remembered the way he would feel intoxicated on Donghun, unable to tear his eyes away from him, his gaze always lingering on his body as his mind rushed away into private thoughts. Now, he felt that very same sensation, stroking his hands down his back, to his small waist; along the curves and dips in his arms beneath the plain white shirt he wore.

Junhee lowered himself to his knees and reached for Donghun’s belt, looking up at him with something more powerful than love.

Junhee had known, from the day he’d first slept with this boy, that he was doomed. If anything had happened between them, he’d never be able to get pleasure from anyone else again. It was laughable, thinking back on those stolen nights with fumbling boys back home. Their connection was perfection, and now the magic they shared scorched through every contact.

He let out a low noise as he sucked Donghun, wanting to convey how much he wanted him, loved him, was grateful for him – all in this one simple act. Donghun stroked back his hair gently, looking down at him with parted lips. The fireflies lit a halo around his hair, lighting his caramel skin as though the golden fire that burned within him was glowing from the inside out.

As Junhee took him deeper, Donghun tilted his head back, the golden freckles on his throat exposed. Crackles and waves of loose magic slipped from him – but this time, they used no protective bubbles. They didn’t try to contain their feelings of uncontrol. They let it slip, out into the wild storm of golden explosions, a light show for just one another, to see the way their other half could make them feel.

“Junhee…” Donghun pulled back and crouched down to his level, kissing his neck over and over. “I want something tonight.”

“Anything,” Junhee murmured, catching his earlobe between his teeth. “Whatever it is, you can have it.”

Donghun looked at him: and Junhee jolted as those brilliant gold-flecked eyes met his. And somehow, with a wrench in his gut, he knew what Donghun wanted – without words. He felt Donghun’s connection so keenly in his stomach that he pulled him close without a sound, sucking pretty marks into his neck as he helped tug him out of his pants.

Junhee called on his magic to summon a warm slickness to his own fingertips, just the way Donghun always did.

“You’re sure?” he asked – because no matter how much he _knew_ what Donghun was asking him to do, nothing would stop him making sure with his words.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” Donghun’s breath came warm against his cheek. “I know we’ve not… switched roles before. But I’m ready. I want to feel you.”

Junhee’s stomach clenched with lust.

Still lavishing kisses on his neck and shoulder, Junhee pulled him into his lap. He watched carefully for his reaction as he slipped his fingers against him, and then nudged a little closer… a little closer… and pressed one finger inside him.

There was a clap of thunder overhead, despite the cloudless night sky.

“Relax,” he murmured, even though his own body was trembling from the sudden firing of magical pleasure in his veins. “We can stop the second you say stop.”

“ _I_ _don’t want it to stop_ ,” Donghun whined, his head tipped back as a snap of gold and white lightning twisted through the meadow, temporarily sending the fireflies swirling in confusion. Junhee grinned, learning his face against Donghun’s chest and closing his eyes so he could focus on feeling, exploring. With each finger, Donghun’s breath grew harsher, until the very sounds he was making were enough to send Junhee close to the edge.

Donghun – _oh, ever in control, ever the leader,_ Junhee thought with a smile twitching at his lips – pushed Junhee down onto his back. He tugged Junhee’s soft cotton pants down to his thighs and leaned over him, kissing and licking and mouthing at him until Junhee’s thighs quivered. Violet lights began to pop and crackle around them, and those sparks of white-gold lightning juddered as Donghun’s control on his magic slipped too. Eventually, he straddled Junhee, planting one hand against Junhee’s belly for support.

Of course, _of course_ he wouldn’t let Junhee take control even in this situation. Junhee’s heart pounded with love and affection, even beneath the roaring desire flooding his system. Of course this was Donghun’s way to do this for the first time – to take Junhee’s length in his hand, and to lower himself onto him with a whimper, his own hips finding a rhythm as he gasped in open-mouthed pleasure.

But that’s where Junhee’s rational thinking stopped.

The noise that escaped his mouth was nothing but filthy, and he both wanted to close his eyes in broken arousal and keep them fixed on Donghun. After a crackle of violet left his skin, he managed to peel his eyes open, staring at Donghun as he rode him, entirely abandoned: hair wild and messy, the white shirt he wore unbuttoned to his chest and slipping off one shoulder, the gold freckles on his clenched thighs sparkling. Junhee wrapped his hands around his hips, a gentle guide, moving underneath him to complement his motion. Donghun let out a high moan, his wings twitching and his eyes closed.

He was so fucking beautiful.

“I love you,” Junhee whined, but what was supposed to come out loving and sincere came out broken and choked. He relented to his desire, wrapping one hand around Donghun’s cock and letting out a breath when Donghun worked himself against his palm as he fucked.

Knees dusty with dirt, half undressed, tears prickling his eyes, and the golden glow of an angel pulsing from his skin… Junhee watched Donghun with hunger and love and all things in between. There would be many more nights, many more times they wound their bodies together until magic broke from their barriers, but he would never forget the way he looked now, the way he looked under the light of three moons, and a hundred-thousand fireflies.

~

Junhee had only ever travelled between worlds when unconscious – and learning how to do it awake had made the hairs on his neck bristle.

He moved silently around his old apartment in Seoul, feeling strangely calm.

This was the last time he’d be here.

After their decision to stay in Neverland, Donghun and Junhee had talked at length. It was no small decision to make – and they had made sure that it was what both of them wanted. Then, they had told Sehyoon and Byeongkwan, and watched the way their eyes lit up with joy at the news. They had allowed a little time just for those happy feelings to stay with them all, before talk had turned to practicalities.

There were loose strings to tie up, if nowhere else but in his heart.

“Anything else you need me to pack?” Donghun asked, playing with the strap on his satchel.

Junhee shook his head. “I think that’s everything.”

There was no way to transport everything he owned back to Neverland – and he had no desire to, either. Half of his belongings would have no use there, and most of what he needed the Lost Boys – and Neverland itself – could provide for him.

So into their bags had gone the few things he wanted to save: his favourite books, photographs, a pack of ramen (as much from Donghun’s insistence as his own), and his comfort plushie. Donghun too gathered up the few personal items he’d had Sehyoon bring from Neverland when he had decided to live with Junhee.

Junhee went last to the dresser by the bed. He took two items: the first was the letter Donghun had written to him when Sehyoon had brought him home after defeating the Ateez pirates. Junhee smiled at the drawing of a Neverlandian sunset filled with sunflowers; he remember the way he had cried when he had sat here and read it, alone. Now, he tucked it into his bag.

Finally, he took up the necklace that had sat on his dresser since the last night he had slept here. The little wooden house that Yuchan had been carving before his death was incomplete, but somehow, Junhee would have it no other way. He had worn it every day, even though the sight of it had always brought a pang of sadness. Now, he looked at it with a smile, knowing that Yuchan was at peace, and with Amiri, in whatever place it was that they were.

He slipped it over his head and turned to Donghun.

“I think I’m ready.”

Donghun nodded, and led Junhee to the window. He took one last look at the home he knew would soon be rented to someone else, his trace forgotten, and took off into the night.

They had two more stops in Seoul. Donghun was also taking him to collect seeds prior to their return to Neverland at sunrise, but this trip had one primary purpose: Junhee’s closure. And so those two stops would take as long as they needed.

Somewhere distantly, students or young professionals laughed into the night, enjoying their late-night drinking in the capital. Junhee smiled, unlocking the back door to the floristry shop and letting them in. On the ground, they had worn coats to keep their wings tucked against their backs in case anyone saw them, but all was silent at this hour.

Junhee’s heart panged as he stepped out into the shop floor.

Everything stood empty; the pots were no longer filled with blossoms, the sign on the door switched to _closed_ and gathering dust. Moonlight filtered in through the glass front – weaker here, with just one moon.

An unexpected lump rose in Junhee’s throat and suddenly, there were tears on his face.

“Little one…” Donghun took his hand and raised it to his lips, pressing a soft kiss onto his knuckles. “It’s not too late to change your mind, you know that, right?”

Junhee shook his head, teardrops blinking to the floor. “No, it’s not that.” He sniffed. “I want to go. More than anything. It’s just… moving on is never easy, you know?” He looked at Donghun, lip wobbling. “No matter how much you want something…”

Donghun smiled gently. “Letting go of the past is the hardest thing of all. Even when it’s everything you want.” He smiled. “I cried before leaving Neverland. Even though I wanted to live with you and was excited about being in Seoul with every fibre of my being… I still found it hard to leave a part of my past behind.”

Junhee nodded. “This place was my dream once.”

“It was. But you’re not losing that dream.” Donghun squeezed his hand gently. “See it as one dream _achieved_. And now… it’s time for the next.”

“You’re right.” Junhee smiled, the tears drying in his eyes as he took a deep breath. “I’ll always have my memories from this place. Now it’s time to make some more.”

They took the time they needed, and then Junhee locked up for a final time, posting the key back through the letterbox.

“So… Last stop?” Donghun’s voice carried a question: _you definitely want to do this?_

Junhee nodded resolutely.

They flew quickly and quietly, high over the city. Their destination was Guro-gu, further out into the outskirts of Seoul. Junhee led the way, bringing them down to land in the darkness of a neatly manicured garden.

He felt Donghun’s eyes on his face, but he swallowed hard, and led the way towards the house.

Junhee hadn’t been here in more years than he could count. Unlike his apartment and the flower shop, he couldn’t imagine this place bringing him to tears, nor generating a sense of nostalgia. But instead it made his heart thump, and he took out a key from his pocket.

The hallway was dimly lit from the lights of a room at the end of the corridor. An unfamiliar cat raised its head from its place sleeping in a basket in one corner, blinking slowly at the newcomers.

Junhee felt a twinge of anxiety across his connection with Donghun.

He removed his shoes in the doorway – the habit of a lifetime – and padded quietly down the corridor. He stopped before the room with lights on, then took a very deep breath.

He pushed back the door, and he met his mom’s eyes straight away.

Junhee had never known what it would look like for someone to think they’d seen a ghost, but he imagined it would be something like this. An instant pale face. Eyes full of disbelief and fear. Mouth open in soundless shock.

“ _Junhee?!”_

And now both his mom and dad were on their feet, stock still, staring at him with blown-out eyes. He wanted to laugh at their expressions, and cry at seeing them, and it resulted in him being unable to say anything.

“Junhee… Where have you _been_?”

His mother began to tremble, stepping closer, holding out her hands, and then stepping back. His father remained unmoving.

“Mom, I-” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “I’m okay, Mom. I’m safe, and I’m fine. I’m so sorry for worrying you.”

“Worrying me? Junhee, you _disappeared_! For the second time! We… We… We thought you might have been taken, or hurt, or… or… or that you’d committed…” Her words stuck in her throat as tears rolled down her cheeks.

Distantly, Junhee registered that it was almost amusing. They’d all but disowned him, but it turned out a little stint of going missing without a trace was enough to make all that seem petty.

“Mom, please trust me… I’m okay. No one coerced me or hurt me.” He hesitated. “But I’m going away again. I wanted to come and see you and tell you I’m okay, and that you don’t need to worry about me anymore.

More stunned silence.

“Going away..?” His mom echoed. “Going away where?”

“I’ve started a home somewhere else.”

“Another city? Is it Daegu? You always said-”

“It’s not Daegu.” Junhee swallowed. And then slowly, he slipped his coat from his shoulders, revealing his wings.

When Junhee and Donghun had talked about everything, Junhee had been adamant that he needed to see his mom and dad before they left. He couldn’t live peacefully knowing the people at home were worried about him, and would never get closure on why he went missing. They had discussed leaving a note, but Junhee had been worried that it could look forged, or look as though he had written under gunpoint or some other threat.

And so they had settled on coming here in person. And Junhee had known there was nothing for it but telling the truth – even if that truth was out of this world.

It was hardly like anyone would believe their son was a phaerie, even if they tried to tell someone.

“What..?” His mom stepped backwards, staring at the fragile petal-like wings against his back. “Is this some kind of trick..?”

“No…” Junhee glanced at his ashen father, and then back at his mom. “There are places you don’t even know about, worlds beyond this one… and that’s where I’ve found myself. That’s where my home is.”

On the word _home_ , he couldn’t help but glance at the doorway. His parents’ eyes followed, so distracted by Junhee they only now noticed the boy stood in the doorway.

Donghun stood, arms folded and his coat over one forearm, golden wings against his back. There was a flash of defiance in his eyes – that old guarded, stern look Junhee had once been met with – as though challenging them to have a problem with him, or Junhee, or any of this.

But Junhee’s mom didn’t recoil. Her eyes widened, and she took a step forward.

Inquisitive, Donghun stepped into the light of the living room, the amber lamp casting a glow on his freckles.

Against every expectation, Junhee watched in shock as his mom’s eyes filled once more with tears.

“Are you an angel..?”

Donghun didn’t snort with laughter, nor scoff at her answer. Gently, he took one of her hovering hands.

“No, I’m a Dokkebi.” It was the first time Junhee had heard him introduce himself as such. “If you want to blame someone for stealing your son away… It was me. But I swear to you, he’ll be safe with me. And I’ll do whatever it takes to make him happy.”

He glanced at Junhee’s dad, who swallowed hard.

Junhee’s mom’s hand trembled in Donghun’s, and she took a shaky breath. “You’re beautiful,” she whispered, with a nervous giggle, and then gasped as tears dripped from her lashes.

“I know this is a shock, Mom, Dad…” Junhee stood next to Donghun. “But Donghun and I… We just wanted to make sure you understood. And… you need to tell the others we’re safe. There doesn’t need to be police involved. My friends… I’m not coming back, so please, reassure them all that I’m okay.”

“We will.” It was the first words Junhee’s dad had spoken, and Junhee looked at him with gratitude.

“Okay. Well… We have to go.” Junhee needed to get out of here, before the adrenaline wore off and his emotions could come out to play. He still didn’t know how to feel when the last time he had spoken to these people, they had condemned him to hell. Their family ties earned them peace of mind, but nothing more.

“Wait, I..!” Junhee’s mom put up a hand as they turned, making them falter. She searched both their faces, until her eyes came back to Donghun’s. “Please… Look after my son.”

Donghun regarded her with an unreadable expression, and then he inclined his head. “You have my word.”

And with that, they left into the night.

~

Junhee swung his legs gently.

A faint breeze tickled his neck, sending tendrils of his growing dark hair onto his face. He pushed it back, taking a deep breath with closed eyes. It always had been easier to breathe up here.

He didn’t need to open his eyes, because he sensed his arrival instead. He smiled as Donghun settled next to him on their favourite tree branch.

“My little one.” The kiss on his shoulder brought with it all the warmth and love he could ever need, and he finally opened his eyes.

“I’m still getting used to seeing the sunrise again.” Junhee looked out over Neverland, where a sleepy sun was ambling over the horizon. Ribbons of deep red and watered gold announced its arrival. He took Donghun’s hand, their fingers lacing together. “How is he this morning?”

“He’s doing great.” Donghun nodded. “Sehyoon doesn’t think it’ll be long until he wakes up for good.”

Junhee felt a pang of excitement. Kasper had only roused for brief moments so far – his eyes fluttering open long enough to drink water, and for them to tell him that he was safe. Under Sehyoon’s careful watch, his body had all but fully healed, his wings stitched together and his skin taking on a healthier glow. The idea of him waking up long enough to talk filled Junhee with anticipation. What would he be like? Where had he come from? And how had he ended up in the hands of the Demons?

“And how about you?” Donghun shifted closer on the branch, the first rays of sun sparkling in his eyes. “How are you, after everything?”

“I’m fine. More than fine.” Junhee smiled at him, filled with peace. Two days had passed since they had returned back from Seoul, and he knew Donghun was still worried over whether his visit to his parents had unearthed unpleasant emotions. But in reality, it had only brought him a sense of closure and restfulness that he had needed in order to move on.

“So now that we’re here for good…” Donghun started, absently creating a flurry of sparks with his magic and sending them dancing in the air over the trees. “Do you wanna do that thing humans do? Uh, what is it… Do a wedding?”

This time Junhee couldn’t help but chuckle. If only Donghun realised how that question was normally the biggest question a person could be asked.

And how it didn’t even feel one tiny bit weird to hear it coming from his mouth.

“No,” he said, shaking his head with a smile. “I don’t need to marry you to know I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you.” He met Donghun’s eyes, holding his hand tighter.

Donghun nodded. “I just didn’t want you feeling like you missed out on anything by choosing to live in Neverland.”

“I’m not, trust me.” He grinned, nudging Donghun playfully. “We’ll both miss noodles but… it’s not like we can’t pick up a bag or three when we go back for seeds.” He laughed, turning back to the sunrise. “I guess the only thing we won’t have the option for is kids.” He shrugged. “Back home we could have adopted, or whatever. But that’s okay. There’s a thousand things here to make up for that.”

“Well… That’s still possible.” He looked at Donghun in surprise. “But we’d have to seek out a bigger phaerie community.”

“In Neverland?” Junhee’s eyes widened in shock. “There is one?!”

“No. Out there.” Donghun nodded in the direction of the ocean. “A long way out there.”

Junhee smiled as his heart skipped a beat. _Out there_. It looks like he was in for a bigger adventure than he ever could have realised.

For a while, they sat quietly, hand-in-hand as they watched the sun in its ascent. Warmth began to bathe the land, and birds the colours of gemstones took to the skies, singing their happiness at the coming of daybreak. Creatures stirred, flowers opened, and the ever-changing, ever-growing world of Neverland started a new day.

“And what about you?” Junhee asked, as the sky finally lightened into pale blue. “Are you happy we’re here?”

Donghun nodded. “I’m home,” he said simply.

Junhee smiled, looking out over Neverland in all its glory. “You know what?” he said quietly, as Donghun squeezed his fingers. “I think I am too.”

_The End._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we come to the end of our second Neverland Chronicle.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and I really hope you enjoyed it! One day I’ll find a new way to say it, but for now I’ll repeat it again: writing for even one person who enjoys the story is enough to make me happy. Thank you especially for everyone who has left kind comments or messaged me on Twitter – you truly have no idea how much your kind words mean to me! I hope this ending lives up to your expectations.
> 
> These stories have a really special place in my heart, and I knew it from how many times I cried writing this final chapter. When Donghun and Junhee talk about the pain of moving on, it came from the way it feels to conclude a story as a writer. I’m so excited to post the ending but… letting go of writing about these boys is hard. I love writing them so much, and I miss Neverland when it's over.
> 
> Some final trivia: Neverland is built on the back of my synaesthesia. I have chromesthesia – a condition where I see colours and shapes when I hear sounds. I decided to play on this inspiration more in this story – using it as a way to explain Junhee’s brand new ‘sense’ of magic. You might have noticed lots of seeing sounds, hearing colours, tasting textures – even in Junhee’s safety bubble when they had sex, his pleasure was represented by colour and beautiful shapes. I hope it added a nice little touch to the story, and maybe gave you a little insight into how for some of us, our senses are not necessarily five separate ones! 
> 
> Again, a hundred thank yous for reading. What an adventure we’ve been on!
> 
> With love,  
> The Indigo Dragonfly
> 
> [Find me on Twitter!](https://twitter.com/IndiDragonfly)


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